112 SNOW FINCH. 



startled, it flies up high, in the air, and seems to go 

 far away, but it usually makes a circuit and returns to 

 the same spot, where it settles upon the ground. 



Its call, which is heard during flight, is a pe- 

 culiar piping, short, broken note, compared by Schinz 

 to the syllables 'tri, tri, tri.' Bechstein says that its 

 call is a loud and clear 'kip, kip,' like that of the 

 Crossbill. It will also in confinement sing the notes 

 of the Mountain Finch, and is not easily tamed. 



It lives upon seeds and insects, preferring of the 

 first those that are oily, and of the latter beetles and 

 grasshoppers, moths, etc. In winter its food is by 

 necessity confined to the seeds of alpine plants — fir and 

 pine trees, and, like our Sparrows and Finches, it 

 may be seen feeding among the dung of horses, and 

 it will even in inclement seasons venture into the 

 cloisters of St. Bernard to pick up grains of rice or 

 anything it can get. Schinz tells us they are always 

 in good condition, and very fat in summer. In con- 

 finement they will do well on rape and hemp seeds, 

 but will also eat those of the fir, which they seem to 

 like much. They also feed upon the seeds of several 

 grasses. 



The Snow Finch breeds only in the highest regions 

 of the highest mountains, where the growth of wood 

 has ceased, and near those dreary and desolate spots 

 where the snow has never melted since the mountain 

 was upheaved from the bowels of the earth. Yet it 

 hath pleased Him, without whose knowledge not a 

 Sparrow falleth to the ground, to locate here one of 

 the most beautiful of His created things; and as the 

 weary traveller seeks among these wild and inhospitable 

 regions the records of a past history in the world — 

 and is full of that deep and indescribable feeling which 



