42 Bird Studies. 



This is our gregarious winter friend, in slate blue coat and hood, with a 



color below that matches the snow. When the Snowbird flies, the tail is 



Slate-colored slightly spread and a pure white border is added, by the 



Snowbird. color of the outer tail feathers, to the tail of dark slate 



junco hyemaiis (Linn.), blue. The female is paler in color. Many individuals, 



especially young birds of the year, have a suffusion of brown over the slate 



color. Very young birds in their first plumage have the entire lower parts 



grayish white, streaked with dusky black, and the upper parts obscure slate 



color, streaked with black. This bird is about the size of a Song Sparrow 



and of very similar build. 



SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD. * 



The nest is placed on the ground, often where a tree has blown down, 

 among the exposed roots, and again on some bank along a road where the 

 wash of rains has left an overhanging turf. It is a loose structure of moss, 

 grasses, and rootlets, lined with hair and fine grass. The three to five eggs 

 are white with specks of reddish brown, often becoming splashes at the larger 

 end. They are three quarters of an inch long and five eighths of an inch in 

 their other diameter. 



This is a bird of Northern North America breeding from Northern New 



o 



York, northward, and southward on the higher Alleghanies to Virginia. In win- 

 ter it is common throughout the Eastern United States, as far south as Georgia. 



