256 
FRIKGILLA NIVALIS. 
August and September, ndien they moult their featherS; 
the black on the front, and partially on the bill, disap' 
pears. The young arc also without the black durinjJ 
the first season. 
The chipping sparrow is five inches and a quartet 
long, Jind eight inches in extent ; frontlet, black ; chn'> 
and line over the eye, whitish ; crown, chestnut ; breast 
and sides of the neck, pale ash ; bill, in winter, blacb) 
in Slimmer, the lower mandible flesh coloured ; rump; 
dark ash ; belly and vent, white ; back, viu-iegate“ 
with black and bright bay ; wings, black, broadly edged 
A^itli bright chestnut ; tail, dusky, forked, and slighW 
edged with pale ochre; legs and feet, a pale flesb 
colour. The female differs in having less black on the 
frontlet, and the bay duller. Both lose the bladv fro“ 
in moulting. 
171. parvc/r.ia w/rjir.?, WILSON snowbird. , 
WILSON, PLATE XVI. FIG. VI. — EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEU.H. 
This well known species, small and insignificant 
it may appear, is, by far, the most numerous, as well 
the most extensively disseminated, of all the feather^ 
tribes that visit us from the frozen regions of the norf^' 
Their migrations extending from the arctic circle, ’ 
probably, beyond it, to the shores of the Gulf of Mexii’d' 
spreading over the whole breadth of the United Statd|"^ 
from the Atlantic tlcean to Louisian.a : ho w much fartl" 
westward, I am unable to say. About the 20tb 
October they make their first appearance in those ps'/j 
of Pennsylvania east of the Alleghany Mountains, 
first they are most generally seen on the borders 
w'oods among the falling and decayed leaves, in li'd- 
flocks of thirty or forty together, always taking 
trees when disturbed. As the weather sets in 
they approach uearer the farm-house and villages ; 
on the appearance of, what is usually called, 
weather, assemble in larger flocks, and seem * 1 '^." j,y 
diligent in searching for food. This increased ‘‘'‘'*^','^.'11 
is generally a sure prognostic of a storm. When ‘‘i 
