34 



Hints to Audubon Workers. 



a standard pole, as indicated by the dotted 

 lines in Fig. 2, when it is not desired to sus- 

 pend it. The cat screen is intended to 

 prevent cats from passing up the pole and 

 also to break the otherwise stiff and un- 

 graceful lines, and as a trellis for vines to 

 entwine on after having climbed or been 

 trained up the standard pole. The cat 

 screen is made of the branches of the black 

 alder, or birch, which are firmly bound to 

 the picket or standard pole, some two feet 

 below the bottom of the pan, against which 

 they press and radiate out as shown. The 

 best and most ornamental branches for 

 making the screens are red birch with the 



cones on, spruce with its rich buds, and 

 sweet gum with its curious corky bark. 



Other tasteful houses may be made by 

 covering ordinary wooden boxes with the 

 rough bark taken from old oak or chestnut 

 logs. This can be neatly tacked to a frame 

 about the boxes, so as to look like a section 

 of a log as in Figures 3 and 4. 



The trouble expended in making homes 

 for our summer visitors will not be wasted. 

 They will amply repay by their sweet songs, 

 their bright ways, and their more important 

 services as insect destroyers, any effort which 

 we may put forth to show them that we are 

 their friends and to bring them close to us. 



HINTS TO AUDUBON WORKERS.* 



FIFTY COMMON BIRDS AND HOW TO KNOW THEM. 



X. 



SNOW BUNTING ; SNOWFLAKE. 



THIS is the true snowbird, and can 

 never be confounded with the junco. 

 The monastic juncos are closely shrouded 

 in slate-gray robes and cowls, only a short 

 under robe of white being marked off below 

 their breasts. The snowflakes, on the other 

 hand, as their name suggests, are mostly 

 white, although their backs are streaked 

 with dusky and black. 



The juncos come about the house in 

 spring and fall^ and during the early snows, 

 but the snowbirds, timid and strange, f^y 

 over the fields and are associated with 

 the wonderful white days of a country 

 winter, when the sky is white, the earth is 

 white, and the white trees bow silently 

 under the wand of winter till they stand 

 an enchanted snow forest. For, as the 

 flakes drift through the air, the snowbirds, 

 undulating between the white earth and 

 sky, seem like wandering spirits that are a 

 part of the all-pervading whiteness. Tho- 

 reau says, " The snow buntings and the tree 

 sparrows are the true spirits of the snow- 



♦ Copyright, t888, by Florence A. Merriam. 



storm. They are the animated beings that 

 ride upon it and have their life in it."* 



Mr. Allen, in speaking of our winter birds, 

 says: "The beautiful snow bunting [F/cctro- 

 phenax nivalis, Meyer) is one of the largest, 

 and when whirling from field to field in 

 compact flocks, their white wings glisten- 

 ing in the sunlight, form one of the most 

 attractive sights of winter ; and most com- 

 monly appearing about the time of heavy 

 falls of snow, and disappearing during con- 

 tinued fine weather, there is in the popular 

 mind a degree of mystery attached to their 

 history, being the 'bad weather birds' of 

 the superstitious. Cold half-arctic coun- 

 tries being their chosen home, they only 

 favor us with their presence during those 

 short intervals when their food in the north- 

 ern fields is too deeply buried ; and being 

 strong of wing and exceedingly rapid in 

 flight, they can in a few hours leave the 

 plain for the mountain, or migrate hundreds 

 of miles to the northward. "f 



* Thoreau's " Winter," p. Sg. 



f Ameiican jVatumlist, Vol. I., No. i, p. 43, 

 March, 1867. 



