1881.] : The Eastern Snow-Bird., 523 
write him down as going to the bad, simply because he trends a 
little on the heartless ways of men. 
As hinted above, I think the snow-bird has capacities for human 
attachments. I saw one at a friend’s house which had domiciled 
for the winter among the plants that filled the bay window. Over 
these hung a canary cage, the seed spilling from which fell into 
the flower pots, and were ample for Junco’s wants. The bird 
seemed entirely at home, often leaving the window garden for the 
wider range of the sitting room. With the first snow of the 
winter, the bird had entered at an open door of its own accord ; 
and when the spring came it took its departure in the same way. 
I find myself so much interested by an account of a caged 
snow-bird, in a letter from my friend, Dr. Richard E. Kunzé, of 
New York, that I cannot refrain from giving an extract: “ In my 
aviary I have kept from eighteen to twenty denizens, during the 
past winter. I had no canary, and only one snow-bird, /uzco 
hyemalis, which I obtained from a bird dealer early in the winter. 
I kept him two months, and I think I had him just two months 
too long! They are regularly trapped and offered for sale in this 
city, on account of their frolicsome ‘ways, and not because they 
are songsters. In song they are much inferior to our purple 
finch, song sparrow or yellow-bird, yet their song is more varied 
than that of the lesser red-poll. They also sing at night, and 
quite frequently when domesticated. His note at night is more 
of a monotonous character, amounting to just a whirring r-r-r-r-r-r 
~—l-I-r-r-r-r—r-r-r-r, and so on, reminding one of a tree-toad 
more than anything else. Not being very timid, he naturally be- 
comes very tame. He is rather too much of a pugnacious char- 
acter for a well kept aviary, and to my sorrow I must confess that 
when last week I took him to one of the Central Park menagerie 
aviaries, it was with no great reluctance that I parted with him. 
Before his banishment he had destroyed the plumage of many a 
€ bird forme. In putting a new bird in my aviary, it is the 
aviarian custom to give him a hazing, like any other freshman of 
a higher order of beings; yet that snow-bird was not molested 
by any one, which, no doubt, made him bolder. I have in my 
aviary an African weaver-bird and a Japanese robin, both of which 
are not to be trifled with, and generally are very aggressive them- 
Selves ; yet he chased them in pairs, as he did also the indigo 
sig yellow-bird, nonpareil and the smaller birds of the finch 
ibe, 
