OF AN ORNITHOLOGIST. 39 
kinds are either rapacious birds, or such hardy species as 
Titmice, Jays, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Finches and 
Grouse, whose means of subsistence is about equally sure 
at all seasons. A few are, more properly, migrant sum- 
mer species, of which only hardy adventurous individuals 
linger with us in winter, the majority seeking a milder 
home farther south: among such are the Meadow Lark, 
Kingfisher, Cedar Bird and Robin. The winter visitors 
are all from the north; many of these are irregular in 
their visits, coming to us only when driven southward by 
the severity of the weather, or more probably by scarcity 
of food. Of this whole number the limits of our paper 
will allow us to notice but a few, and even of the more 
interesting to give but very brief accounts. 
The rapacious or raptorial birds, the Hawks and Owls, 
though comparatively numerous in species, are not so in 
individuals. Shy and mistrustful, seeking the retirement 
of the wilderness or the forest, and the nocturnal kinds 
active only by night, they form but an inconspicuous fea- 
ture in our local ornithology. Constantly persecuted by 
man, they have decreased greatly in numbers since the 
first settlement of our country, and every year they seem 
more and more to avoid the cultivated districts, seeking a 
more congenial home in the less inhabited parts of the 
continent. — 
Of the true or typical Falcons, esteemed the ‘ noble” 
birds of prey in the old days of falconry, we have in win- 
ter, as at other seasons, now and then a Duck Hawk or 
Peregrine Falcon (Falco anatum Bon.), a Pigeon Hawk 
(Hypotriorchis columbarius Gray), and a Sparrow Hawk 
(Tinnunculus sparverius Vieill.), but so rare are they 
that a careful observer will ordinarily see but one or two 
of each in a winter, or perhaps oftener none at all. The 
æ 
