ae 
HE NIDOLOGIST 
Bheh cf all , the Bind, 
A Magazine Devoted to a Popular Knowledge of Animated Nature 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
Wor. lit. Not :8: 
Snowbirds. 
BY R. W. SHUFELDT, C.M.Z.S. 
HEN I was a boy and passing through 
the early phases of an Ornithologist in 
my home in New England, there were 
two kinds of birds 
we called “ Snow- 
birds.” There was 
the big white and 
dappled one, and 
also the smaller 
species, the males 
of which have 
blackish heads and 
white breasts. 
American Ornith- 
ologists now speak 
of the first kind as 
“Snowflakes,” and 
place them in a 
genus Plectrophen- 
ax—the common 
Snowflake being P. 
nivalis. The small- 
er fellow is called 
a“‘Junco,’’ and has 
had the genus /zn- 
co (of Wagler) cre- 
ated for him—the 
best known form being the one called the ** Slate- 
colored Junco (/. Ayemalis). This is the bird I 
knew asa“ Snowbird” whena boy, and I expect, 
if the truth were known, there are more people 
now, a hundred to one, who call them “Snow- 
birds,” rather than “ Juncos,” and at the best 
the latter is not a very pretty name. Dr. 
Coues, who is something of an Ornithophilolo- 
gist, says it ought to be pronounced “ Yoonco,” 
and that it comes from a Latin word “juscus, 
a reed or rush; or jungo,1 jom; punctus, 
joined ; either, reeds growing denseiy together, 
or used as withes to bind with.” He does ot 
tell us, however, what all this has to do with 
the Snowbird. When the United States 
National Museum was preparing material for 
NEW YORK, APRIL, 1896. 
SNOWBIRDS (¥. HYEMALIS, & AND 2). 
$1.00 PER YEAR, 
the great Columbian Exposition, there was. 
some wonderful progress made there in the 
way of taxidermical exhibits. This progress: 
was due to the fact that the institution em- 
ployed a number of very skilled taxidermical 
artists. Among these was a young man who 
produced some ex- 
pert pieces of 
work; I refer to 
Mr Harry ae 
Denslow, so well 
known to the 
American — school 
of taxidermists. 
Mr. Denslow after- 
ward went to New 
Vork jsita tere 
study, and while 
there he sent me a 
number of photo- 
graphs of his re- 
cent work and 
progress. Well, 
what I am coming 
to is this, one of 
these was of a pair 
of Snowbirds he 
had mounted (/. 
hyematlis, d and $ ), 
and they are so 
well done, and represent these birds so beau- 
tifully, that it gives me pleasure to put them in 
here as an illustration of the genus we have now 
under consideration. It is a splendid piece of 
work and as natural as life. 
Now years and years ago when that lovely 
poet-naturalist, Alexander Wilson, wrote on 
American Ornithology, he knew of but one 
species of this genus, and for it he used the 
term FYringilla hudsonia, calling it by the 
honest name of a Snowbird. It was the Ayin- 
gilla hyemalis of Linneus ; the Passer nivalis 
of Bartram, and our present /wnco hyemalis. 
What would Wilson say were it possible for 
him to be among us again, if he were told that 
Snowbirds are now called “Juncos;’’ that 
