506 SNOW BIRD. 



November, and departs in March. When kept in aviaries in that State, 

 it appears to suffer much from heat, bathing frequently to cool itself, 

 but it never breeds, and is always silent. 



My friend Dr T. M. Brewer of Boston, has sent me the following 

 account of the nest and eggs, as found among the mountains in the Os- 

 wego county, in the State of New York, by Mr Edward Appleton : — 

 " The nests were all situated on the ground, some of them having con- 

 cealed entrances in the same manner as is frequently practised by the 

 Song Sparrow, and their complement of eggs was four. The external 

 diameter of the nest given me was four and a half inches, its internal 

 two and a half, the internal depth an inch and a half, the external about 

 two. It is composed of stripes of bark, straw roots, and horse hair, 

 lined with fine moss and the soft hair of small quadrupeds. In size and 

 appearance it is not unlike the nest of the common Fringilla melodia. 

 The eggs measure six-eighths of an inch in length, five-eighths in 

 breadth, and are more nearly spherical than any of the eggs of this ge- 

 nus with which I am acquainted. Their ground-colovir is yellowish- 

 white, thickly covered with small dots of a reddish-brown colour ; in 

 the broadest part of the e^^ the spots are more numerous and confluent, 

 forming a crown or belt, but at the end they are more sparse. 



The palate ascending, the upper mandible beneath with a hard con- 

 vex protuberance, less prominent than in the Snow Bunting, and three 

 ridges proceeding from it ; the lower mandible deeply concave. Tongue 

 5 twelfths long, narrow, deep, grooved above, tapering to a homy point, 

 which is slightly slit. (Esophagus 2\ inches long, dilated on the middle 

 of the neck to 4^ twelfths. Stomach rather small, roundish, 5 twelfths 

 long, 4i twelfths broad ; its lateral muscles large and distinct, its cuti- 

 cular lining dense and longitudinally rugous. It contains seeds and nu- 

 merous particles of quartz. Intestine 8 inches long, from 2 twelfths to 

 1 twelfth in width. Coeca 2 twelfths long, 1 twelfth wide, and 1 inch 

 distant from the extremity. 



Trachea 1 inch 9 twelfths long, scarcely 1 twelfth in breadth ; its 

 rings about 70, rather feeble ; bronchial half rings about 15 ; the four 

 pairs of inferior laryngeal muscles very large. 



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