JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 103 
at a date when the days were nearly of the shortest, and it 
was noticed by many that the low mallow plants so common 
about garden fences, flowered in perfection at a date several 
weeks later than in average autumn seasons. Parties of the 
white-billed sparrow (junco hyemalis) hovered about sheltered 
corners of our orchards until numerous large flocks of snow 
buntings had begun their winter visits—in fact, the unusually 
large numbers and almost continued presence of the snow 
buntings has been one of the marked features of the winter, 
now nearly ended. ‘These winter migrants from northern 
regions frequented this neighborhood until the 16th of 
March, and about the last days of January small parties 
of shore larks were usually seen hovering on the flanks 
of the more multitudinous flocks of their white feathered con- 
freres ; the shore larks are frequently seen on the well tracked 
highways where horse teams were frequent passers by—the 
bunting more habitually spreading over the snow-covered fields, 
and alighting wherever the dried stems of various tall weeds 
held out any prospect of food in their seed capsules or frost- 
nipped calyxes; the shore larks kept alongside or else in the 
rear of the hosts of buntings, showing plainly that the instinct 
was to be with them but not of them, a partnership with a 
‘‘limited’’ affinity clause. A small number of Meadow larks 
(alauda magna) have managed to live through the winter in 
this locality (surmised to be late summer broods); these were 
noticed on almost all moderately fine days and frequented the 
vicinities of hay-stacks and shrubby thickets where the force 
and vigor of the wintry winds was likely to be mitigated ; 
their plaintive refrains were heard from time to time when 
brief hours of weak sunshine gave a hint of more propitious 
days that the future might have in store, and upon the arrival 
of the bluebirds and robins on the 18th of March, the 
meadow larks and also an occasional tuneful song-sparrow 
contributed their quota to the reviving strains of vernal glad- 
ness. 
A few adventurous semi-aquatic birds, such as herons, 
snipes and the earliest of the plovers (the killdeers) were quite 
