I 
54 THE CANADIAN NATUUALIST. 
around our house a few days ago ; a plain-coloured^, but 
pretty little bird. The Tree Sparrow (Fringilla Arborea ), 
easily known by a brown spot on the breast^ is numerous 
every day^ in cattle yards and around barns. I have ob- 
served some small flocks of the Golden Eye (Anas Clan- 
gula Jy swimming in those parts of the Masuippi River, which 
are unfrozen : it is a pretty little duck,, and when it flies its 
wings make such a loud whirring as to be heard at a consi- 
derable distance. Mr. Armour of Sherbrooke showed me a 
fine specimen of that handsome bird^ the Snow Owl f Stf^ix 
NgcteaJ, which had been shot in that neighbourhood. It 
stands about two feet high ; the plumage is soft and beauti- 
fully white^, with crescent-shaped spots of dark brown all 
over the body. These, beside the Snow-bunting, the Titmice^ 
Woodpeckers^ Blue and Canada Jays^ are^ I believe, all that 
have lately fallen under my observation. 
C — What is the reason that the Masuippi is not frozen 
so solid as the Coatacook ? 
F, — I suppose it is owing to its greater rapidity : it is 
always open much later, and breaks up much earlier, and 
there are frequently patches of open water through the winter. 
C. — Yonder goes a rabbit. 
— More properly the American Hare f Lepus Ameri- 
camts ), the rabbit being unknown on this continent, though 
it is, with us, universally called by that name. It is found 
pretty generally over North America, from this province 
even to the Gulf of Mexico, where it is more common than 
it is with us. Here its winter coat is nearly white, as in 
the one which we have just seen, but in summer it is of a 
yellowish brown, with a white tail. It makes a nest or bed 
of moss and leaves in some hollow tree or old log, "whence it 
issues chiefly by night. Though not so much addicted to 
gnawing as the squirrels, yet as its teeth are formed in the 
