OF NEW ENGLAND. 225 
which he soon afterwards reeled and again fell. After a brief 
chase, during which he flew feebly, usually alighting on the 
ground, I again captured him. On being taken to my room, 
he was for some while listless, but afterwards picked up a few 
of the grains spread for him on the floor, though he refused 
water. He soon began to fly about the room, most often 
against the window-panes, and was finally allowed to escape, 
when he perched in a bush, where half an hour later he was 
found, looking rather forlorn, though sufficiently active to es- 
cape a recapture. 
The Snow-birds, as I have discovered from several observa- 
tions made in March, though early risers, are very drowsy at 
sunrise. They at that season usually passed the night in 
evergreens, and before six o’clock in the morning gathered at 
some lilacs and other bushes, where many slept or rather 
napped, for several minutes, near the ground, though others 
were actively employed. So great was their drowsiness that I 
could approach them closely before they made the effort to 
rouse themselves. Other birds, observed at the same time, 
such as the “‘ Red-polls,” Crows, and Robins, seemed to awake 
with a desire for immediate activity, except those who sang 
before leaving their roosts. : 
(d). The Snow-birds have a loud chuck, and cries of chit, 
chit-a-sit, or the like, which they utter particularly as they 
take to flight.67 They have also in spring a great variety 
of. twitters, trills, and even tinkling sounds, which are often 
so combined as to form a lively song. The notes which they 
employ when excited or quarreling strongly resemble the sound 
produced by the shying of a stone across the ice. Their trills 
are often so like those of the Pine Warblers, though more 
open and more like twitters, that it is difficult to distinguish 
them when the birds are together in the pines. These notes 
also differ but little from those of the Swamp Sparrow, in 
whose haunts, however, the Snow-birds rarely occur. 
As the most common and regular of our winter-visitors, and 
87 See §1, I, D. 
16 
