Bird-Life in "Labrador* "2$ 



43$ sliatle of plumage, with the dark and white colors plainly 

 trnarked. There was very little yellow about the head and eye 

 .and of some twenty specimens none at all on the wing shoul- 

 ders. I shot, one day, four of these birds, none of which luui 

 ;a particle of yellow upon them anywhere that I could distin- 

 guish ; a small tuft of white feathers at the base of the pri- 

 oiary coverts of the shoulder give the appearance of a white 

 ^edging in. the place of the usual yellow. The birds were all 

 remarkably full in coloration, and decided in plumage ; the 

 white very clear, the dark inverted arrow points quite distinct-, 

 as were also the grayish and buif edgings everywhere. One 

 specimen alone had the buify suffusion covering the breast* 

 I cannot say that the rule holds good constantly, but in some 

 thirty specimens the male bad the yellow on the wing shoul- 

 der, while the female and young-of-the-year of either sex had 

 white in that place. The flight of this little fellow is short, 

 <quick, and irregular ; he is wonderfully spry and will appear 

 and disappear so quickly that you can scarcely follow him ; 

 then he is so cunning that when once he has made up his mind 

 to play at hide-and-seek with you you might as well give up 

 attempting to deceive him, for you will utterly fail in ninety- 

 nine cases out of every hundred. He will greet you with a 

 few chirps of surprise from the summit of some ridge of rocks, 

 drop behind them, and appear so suddenly and unexpectedly 

 in some place rods away that you will think it is another bird, 

 Its ordinary notes are a few faint chirps, but at times, especi- 

 ally in early Spring or at night and morning, it will greet you 

 with such a volume of song as to hold you entranced for many 

 minutes at a time. It sometimes, at dusk, imitates somewhat 

 the habits of the sandpipers, and feeds on and among the kelp 

 along the shore in company with them, though I never saw 

 more than two or three together at such a time in one place* 



SNOW BIRD 



Junco hyemalis. (L.) ScL. 



WITH regard to this species I am in great doubt as to just 



