THE WINTER BIRDS. 369 



in these woods as interesting as any I ever pursued in 

 summer or autumn. 



In our latitude, after the first flight of snow has cov- 

 ered the ground, many winter birds, pressed by hunger, 

 are compelled to make extensive forages in quest of food. 

 Our attention is especially drawn toward them at such 

 times, and many parties of them will visit our neighbor- 

 hood in the course of the day, while, if no snow had 

 fallen, they would have confined themselves to a more 

 limited range. One of the most attractive sights on such 

 occasions is caused by flocks of Snow-Buntings usually 

 assembled in great numbers. They are chiefly seen when 

 the snow compels them to fly from place to place in quest 

 of food. They are not birds of ill-omen, as might be in- 

 ferred from the name of bad-weather birds given them in 

 Sweden ; for they do not appear until the storm is over. 



Few sights are more picturesque than these flocks of 

 Snow-Buntings, whirling with the subsiding winds and 

 moving as if they were guided by an eddying breeze, now 

 half concealed by the direction in which they meet the 

 rays of the sun, then suddenly flashing as with a simul- 

 taneous turn they present the under white side of their 

 wings to the light of day. The power of these diminutive 

 creatures to endure the cold of winter and to contend 

 with the storm attaches to their appearance a char- 

 acter allied to sublimity. I cannot look upon them, 

 therefore, in any other view than as important parts in 

 that ever-changing picture of light, motion, and beauty 

 with which Nature benevolently consoles us for those 

 evils assigned by fate to all the inhabitants of the earth. 



The common Snowbirds, of a bluish-slate color, are 

 not so often seen in large compact flocks. They go usu- 

 ally in scattered parties, and are seen in the southern parts 

 of New England only in winter and early spring, arriving 

 from the northern regions late in the autumn. Wilson 



16* x 



