Hints to Audubon Workers. 



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 the white- 

 throats, and stayed till after the first snows. 



One day in September, I found a number 

 of them gathered around an old barn, some 

 hopping about picking up seeds, and others 

 sitting quietly on the boards and sticks that 

 lay on the ground. Another day they and 

 a number of whitethroats were by the side 

 of the barn, picking up grain that had fallen 

 from the threshing, and not satisfied with 

 what they could find there, some of them 

 flew up on the sill of a small square window 

 that had been left open, and hopping along 

 disappeared from our sight in the dark barn. 

 As the weather grew colder they came, as 

 they do every spring and fall, to see what 

 they could find to eat by the side of the 

 house. Here, they raise their heads with 

 quiet curiosity when you approach, and 

 always seem very gentle, trustful birds, but 

 it is said that they show much caution as 

 well as intelligence in eluding their enemies, 

 and are among the most difficult birds to 

 snare. 



The call of the junco is a chip that sounds 

 like a thin smack. Of its songs, Mr. Bick- 

 nell says: ''The junco has two very different 

 songs; a simple trill, somewhat similar to 

 that of the chipping sparrow; and a faint 

 whispering warble, usually much broken but 

 not without sweetness, and sometimes con- 

 tinuing intermittently for many minutes." 



Among the notes of Miss H. H. Board- 

 man, a St. Paul observer, I find, under date 

 of April 7, 1887 : "At 8 A. M. saw quantities 

 of j uncos, from one of whom a tiny trill, 

 more like a shimmer, quite clear and sweet, 

 about eight notes, and then up, crooning to 



itself;" and "April 15, at sunrise, 5:15, a 

 tree full of juncos, twenty or thirty, all 

 singing this peculiar sweet twitter in differ- 

 ent tones. The effect of a whole flock is 

 sweet and harmonious." 



In an old number of the Naturalist, Mr. 

 Lockwood gave an interesting description 

 of the habits of a flock of snowbirds that 

 visited him in New Jersey. He says: "In 

 easy view from my library windows is a spot 

 in the headland of the old orchard, where 

 last autumn grew a tall Phytolacca decandra. 

 The tip of the dead plant is but just ex- 

 posed, and that is hint enough to the little 

 fellows that the dried currant-like berries 

 of the pokewort are to be found in a nat- 

 ural cache under the snow. The way in 

 which a group of five or six birds keep at 

 the spot would indicate that the placer 'pans 

 out well.' How they do dig down into the 

 snow! Dig? Yes, though, very unbirdlike, 

 that is the right word, for it is altogether 

 unlike scratching. Its method of mining, 

 for a bird, seems to me to be original. Our 

 Junco hye^nalis is a hopper, not a runner, 

 and scratching is, as a rule, not an accom- 

 plishment of the hopper family. * * * 

 The bird stiffens out its toes, then makes a 

 jumping shove forward and upward, thus 

 lifting and flirting the snow. The move- 

 ment is of the whole body, and the action is 

 scooping, not unlike that of a ditcher. It 

 is not a shuffling motion, for it demands too 

 much dexterity, but a true shoveling move- 

 ment. Like the post-hole digger's shovel 

 with its short blade and long handle, the 

 middle toe of junco is shorter than its 

 tarsus. 



"Soon this natural cache was exhausted, 

 and a deep, wide excavation with a small 

 entrance was the result of their patient dig- 

 ging. It was truly a snow cavern. The 

 birds soon learned to feed from a supply 

 put at their service on the window sill. 

 Finding so good a commissariat, they so- 

 journed with us a number of days, the little 

 bevy of not more than seven, keeping always 



