256 
FRINGILLA NIVALIS. 
August and September, when they moult their feathers, 
the black on the front, and partially on the bill, disap- 
pears. The young are also without the black during 
the first season. 
The chipping sparrow is five inches and a quarter 
long, and eight inches in extent ; frontlet, black ; chin, 
and line over the eye, whitish ; crown, chestnut ; breast 
and sides of the neck, pale ash ; bill, in winter, black, 
in summer, the lower mandible flesh coloured ; rump, 
dark ash ; belly and vent, white ; back, variegated 
with black and bright bay ; wings, black, broadly edged 
with bright chestnut ; tail, dusky, forked, and slightly 
edged with pale ochre ; legs and feet, a pale flesh 
colour. The female differs in having less black on the 
frontlet, and the bay duller. Both lose the black front 
in moulting. 
171 . FEIN GILL A NIVALIS , WILSON. — - SNOW BIRD. 
WILSON, PLATE XVI. FIG. VI. — EDINBURGH COLLEGIA MUSEUM. 
This w r ell known species, small and insignificant as 
it may appear, is, by far, the most numerous, as well as 
the most extensively disseminated, of all the feathered 
tribes that visit us from the frozen regions of the north. 
Their migrations extending from the arctic circle, and, 
probably, beyond it, to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 
spreading over the whole breadth of the United States, 
from the Atlantic Ocean to Louisiana : how much farther 
westward, I am unable to say. About the 20th of 
October they make their first appearance in those parts 
of Pennsylvania east of the Alleghany Mountains. At 
first they are most generally seen on the borders of 
woods among the falling and decayed leaves, in loose 
flocks of thirty or forty together, always taking to the 
trees when disturbed. As the weather sets in colder, 
they approach nearer the farm-house and villages ; and 
on the appearance of, what is usually called, falling 
weather, assemble in larger flocks, and seem doubly 
diligent in searching for food. This increased activity 
is generally a sure prognostic of a storm. When deep 
