JUNCO. 139 



fore you discover them. They are no longer in 

 flocks, but in pairs, and I consider myself fortu- 

 nate if I get a timid look from one from among 

 the dead branches of a fallen tree top. 



Early last May I was delighted to see a pair 

 on the edge of the raspberry patch, but though 

 they inspected the recesses of a pile of brush, 

 seemed greatly interested in the nooks and cran- 

 nies of an upturned root, and reviewed the attrac- 

 tions of a pretty young hemlock that stood in a 

 moss-grown swamp on the border of the patch, I 

 suspect it was only a feint ; and when they came 

 to the grave business of house choosing they fol- 

 lowed family traditions and built under a stump, 

 in a hole beneath the root of a tree, under an 

 overhanging bank, or somewhere else on the 

 ground, with a natural roof to keep off the rain. 



At all events, they left the raspberry patch, 

 and with the exception of one or two that I heard 

 giving their high-keyed woodsy trill in June, that 

 was the last time I saw any of the family there 

 until fall. Then they came out in time to meet 

 their cousins the white-throats, and stayed till 

 after the first snows. 



Like the sparrows, waxwings, blackbirds, swal- 

 lows, blue jays, swifts, and others, the juncos live 

 in flocks when not nesting. One day in Septem- 

 ber I found a number of them gathered around 

 an old barn, some sitting quietly on the boards 

 and sticks that lay on the ground, and others, as 



