964 EEPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



either side of the tail render identification easy. From the extreme 

 northwestern part of the State the greater part of the Juncos dis- 

 appear with the coming of severe weather, and return from the south 

 in February or March. They frequent all kinds of places. When 

 they first come, thickets and fence rows are preferred. But while 

 they are with us they frequent stubble and brier-patch, upland and 

 riverside, heavy wood and swampy thicket, and, when the weather is 

 severe and snow covers the ground, the barn yard and door yard. 

 Often they are associated in flocks with the Tree Sparrows. The 

 earliest and latest dates of first arrival and of latest departure from 

 the localities named are given: Chicago, 111., arrived September 16, 

 1896, departed in spring April 30, 1895; Sedan, Ind., arrived Septem- 

 ber 30, 1894, departed April 15, 1896; Lafayette, arrived September 

 22, 1894, October 12, 1895, departed April 18, 1895, May 2, 1893; 

 Bicknell, arrived October 2, 1895, October 4, 1896, departed April 

 16, 1896, April 22, 1895; Brookville, October 6, 1887, October 19, 

 1895, departed April 11, 1883, April 26, 1892 and 1897; Trafalgar, 

 September 25, 1897. Some years individuals remain in this latitude 

 quite late. Prof. S. A. Forbes notes taking one June 9, one mile 

 from the Ohio Eiver, near Elizabethtown, Hardin County, 111. (Bull. 

 N. 0. Club, July, 1881, p. 180). Dr. J. M. Wheaton notes that he 

 has seen it in July, in Portage County, 0., and says it is "resident 

 throughout the year in northeastern Ohio" (Birds of 0., p. 332). 

 It is a common summer resident in Michigan, north of Traverse City. 

 It has been noted at Locke, July 8, 1879; Grand Rapids, July 13, 

 1878 (Cook, Birds of Mich., p. 115). From Indiana, however, I 

 have no records after early May. They begin to think of mating 

 before they leave us. Sometimes, during a spell of warm weather, 

 near the middle of March, we begin to hear their love songs. The 

 first heard at Brookville in 1896 was April 11, but this year (1897) 

 I heard the first song March 18. It came from a Junco in an apple 

 tree in my yard. When singing, the bird gets among the thickest 

 of the branches of an apple, cedar or other tree. It is very difficult 

 to see there. When singing, it makes little or no movement, remain- 

 ing for quite a while in the same place, and when its head is turned 

 away from the observer the ventriloquial effect is such that the singer 

 is hard to locate. The Junco utters a pleasant, little vibratory song, 

 usually consisting of four notes, all in the same key. Often there are 

 but three notes, and occasionally it utters five or six. The song is 

 repeated every three to five seconds for as much as a quarter of an 

 hour at a time. It resembles twe-ti-ti-tee, and suggests to me the 

 rattling of a note over a cog wheel, going at an unvarying rate of 



