374 
ANNUAL REPORT. 
curious and perhaps little known habits, or through having inter¬ 
esting personal histories recorded in the pages of our ornithologies.* 
The only opportunity to become acquainted with such birds as the 
handsome and little known evening grosbeak, its relative, the pine 
grosbeak, the elegant northern waxwing or the more common but 
little less interesting red-poll linnet, snow bunting and Lapland 
longspur, is during their sojourn here as visitors from their far 
northern summer homes. Moreover those birds that are present 
in the summer, have, in winter, to live and gain their livelihood 
under greatly changed conditions which presents them to the ob¬ 
server in new and generally very different aspects. The winter 
then offers a field for study peculiarly its own — not a rich and al¬ 
most endlessly varied one like that of the summer and transition 
seasons, but yet a field amply repaying the outlay of time and effort 
necessary to become acquainted with its prominent features. 
A word may be said here in reference to a noticeable trait of 
many winter birds which renders their observation all the easier if 
one is but looking for them. It is the preference often shown for 
the vicinity of dwellings, towns or even busy cities over the wild 
and unsettled country. The jays, grosbeaks, wax wings, sparrows 
and even hawks and owls are more likelv to be found in the near vi- 
i / 
cinity of human habitations than elsewhere. The greater ease and 
certainty with which food and shelter can be obtained is no doubt 
the reason for this. 
The probable number of birds constituting the avi-fauna of 
Minnesota is in the near neighborhood of three hundred. Of this 
number about two hundred and seventy-five species have thus far 
been collected or otherwise identified. About fifty species are 
known to occur in the State in the winter months. Of these a 
few are accidental: .some are rare birds everywhere and at all times; 
while others are found only during occasional winters. There is 
scarcely the least probability that all would occur at any one local¬ 
ity: nor is it very probable that the whole number occur within 
the limits of the State during a single winter. An experience ex¬ 
tending through several winters differing in character, together 
with a residence in different parts of the State, would therefore be 
necessary to form the winter acquaintance of all these birds. 
^Entertaining accounts of all the birds so briefly mentioned below may be found by ref¬ 
erence to such works as Audubf m '.Wilson's. and Nuttall’s Ornithologies, Cone’s Birds of 
the Northwest, Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's Birds of North America and numerous other 
minor works of a more popular nature, among which may be mentioned the writings of 
John Burroughs. The latter’s “Wake Robin” is a little book full of charming bird biog¬ 
raphies. 
