comparatively little in their northern home from mammal and reptile foes. By their 

 numbers and by their frolicsome play these birds imbue our gardens and all places where 

 they occur with hilarity and happy life. Some are in pursuit of each other on the 

 ground, others through the bushes and thickets, and still others are chasing each other 

 through the air, exhibiting thereby a surprising beauty, their elegant movements and pure 

 white tail-feathers being most conspicuous. During the bright October days these play- 

 ful performances are often observed, and, when chasing each other, a quick tuck, tuck, 

 tuck, tuck is frequently heard. Their common call-note is a soft chip. The song is not 

 loud, but very sweet. It is rarely heard during the spring migration, but time and again 

 I have listened with pleasure to the song of caged Juncos. They usually commenced early 

 in April, but the full song was not heard until the beginning of June. Other birds in the 

 same room, diligent songsters, seemed to inspire my caged Snowbirds. The chant con- 

 sists of a number of faint whispering sounds, often interrupted by their call-note tuck, 

 tuck, and their common chip. They intermingle also several other louder notes, which 

 do not seem to belong to the real melody. For ten to twenty minutes they are 

 sometimes engaged in their performance, being apparently themselves much delighted by 

 it. To my ear the lay has much resemblance to that of the Red-poll Linnet. 



On the "ground these birds run around with great dexterity, and among the branches 

 of trees and shrubs they are perfectly at home. They rarely perch in the tops of large 

 trees. Their roosting places are always chosen in dense evergreens wherever such occur, 

 offering them protection against cold weather and their many enemies. Often a whole 

 flock finds shelter in a large dense Norwdy spruce or Scotch pine. In Houston, Texas, 

 they retired during cold weather and during the night to dense masses of evergreen 

 honey-suckles (Lonicera j'aponica and L. Halliana), loquat or Japan plum trees (JSrio- 

 botrya japonica) and magnolias. In fall and winter their food consists of the seeds of 

 weeds and grasses and in spring and summer of insects, their eggs and larvae, which are 

 by them consumed in incalculable numbers. Like many other members of the sub-family 

 Spizellinse, they often scratch on the ground among old leaves for food. Like all our 

 native Sparrows, the Junco is a very useful bird to the farmer and horticulturist, and I 

 cannot refrain from repeating that in treating the birds with kindness we exhibit the 

 greatest kindness to ourselves, 



In Wisconsin this bird is a common summer sojourner from Kewaunee Co. north- 

 ward. During the days of my boyhood, when many parts of Sheboygan Co. were still 

 covered with majestic pine woods, when the wintergreen, trailing arbutus, rattle-snake 

 plantain, yellow lady's slvp^&c {Cypripedium pubescens and C. pary/florain) , the moccasin 

 flower {Cypripedium spectabile), the trientalis, etc., were common flowers on the hill- 

 sides leading to our small little lake, the Juncos were abundantly met with. I observed 

 them throughout the summer and they were doubtlessly nesting there. In Oconto Co. the 

 Snowbird is, according to the observations of Mr. A. J. Schoenebeck, a common summer 

 resident. Its nest he found as early as May 7, being built under the side of a log and 

 containing five fresh eggs. It was constructe;d of grasses and dry clover leaves, and 

 was warmly and smoothly lined with horse and cow hair. Sometimes the nest is built 

 in the up-turned roots of trees, in overhanging banks, on stumps, and underneath a small 

 dense shrub. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a whitish color, varying from a 



