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Forest and Stream 
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 
ADVISORY BOARD 
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, NEW YORK, N. Y. 
CARL E. AKELEY, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 
EDMUND HELLER, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
WILFRED H. OSGOOD, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Ill. 
JOHN M. PHILLIPS, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
CHARLES SHELDON, Washington, D. C. 
GEORGE SHIRAS, 3d, Washington, D. C. 
JOHN T. NICHOLS, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 
T. GILBERT PEARSON, National Association of Audubon Societies. 
WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 
JOHN P. HOLMAN, Managing Editor 
T. H. MEARNS, Treasurer 
Nine East Fortieth Street, New York City 
Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
IN EARLY MARCH 
HE snow of untrodden fields lies fair beneath the 
cloudy sky. Stone walls and rail fences, piled high 
with white, interrupt the nearer distance, and be¬ 
yond the view is cut off by the woods, which show as 
a black band parting the whiteness of the snow from 
the leaden hue of low-hanging clouds. 
One hesitates to walk out over these fields and to 
mar with careless footprint the smooth even covering 
that the kindly skies have spread over the earth, as if 
to protect Nature’s plant-children from the winter’s 
bitter cold. 
At a distance the landscape seems lifeless, yet he wdio 
traverses fields and woods with open eyes will find 
familiar friends not a few. The hedge rows which 
border the lanes or separate the fields, shelter a multi¬ 
tude of birds that stay with us during the whole long 
winter; song sparrows and whitethroats and blue snow¬ 
birds and tree sparrows, all busy about their daily tables. 
In the apple trees, feeding on the frozen thawed fruit 
still clinging to the stems, a igroup of pine grosbeaks 
may be found; siskins work in the birches, and cross¬ 
bills among the cones of spruce and hemlock. In the 
cedars and chokecherry trees along the fences, a busy 
company of titmice is searching each crevice and cranny 
of the bark for insects and their eggs, voicing their con¬ 
tentment by the cheery call that has given them their 
name. 
Wherever weed stems stand above the snow, tiny 
line-like depressions show the tracks where little spar¬ 
rows have passed from one weed stalk to another, tear¬ 
ing to pieces each seed particle, looking for food. These 
are hard times for the small folks of fields and woods, 
when at the same time they feel the bite of cold and 
the pinch of hunger. 
Corn and meadow lot alike are marked by long lines 
of tracks much larger than those of the crows. In the 
corn lot, holes in the snow show»where the birds have 
dug down and uncovered a few grains of corn, and in 
the meadow, soil and blades of grass scattered on the 
snow show that here too they have unearthed some 
food, perhaps a few grubs or maybe a meadow mouse. 
By what sense do these canny birds so find their food? 
Over these fields night and morning through this in¬ 
clement season, the crows fare backward and forward in 
sable procession on their way to and from the salt 
water, where they feed at low tide. Yet if the cold is 
too bitter and the mud flats are ice-covered, even this 
uncertain food supply is cut off. 
As we draw nearer the woods we see that they are 
no longer black but gray—a gray that grows paler as 
we draw nearer. At their very border we can look 
far into them, and see white snow within through a 
screen of interlacing twigs and tree trunks. What 
mysteries may not this screen conceal? Rabbits and 
ruffed grouse, and gray squirrels and perhaps a coon. 
Among the branches of these still gray trees may be 
resting, silent and watchful, great birds of prey ready 
to descend upon meadow mouse or squirrel-—devourers 
of the farmers’ crops. 
It is the hardest time of the winter, yet even now a 
change is at hand; day by day the sun is gaining power, 
and at midday it gives out a grateful heat. Under its 
frozen covering the earth is already beginning to grow 
warmer and to stir, as if it feels some faint premonition 
of the awakening that is to come ere long. 
SPEED OF BIRDS 
ERTAIN species of hawks have a speed of 200 feet 
a second, or about 136 miles an hour. This might 
be a suitable rate for a racing airplane. The can- 
vasback duck can fly from 130 to 160 feet a second, but 
its usual rate of 60 to 70 miles an hour would be pretty 
fast to be enjoyable in a plane making a pleasure trip. 
The crow is the least rapid of a list of 22 migratory 
birds, flying an insignificant average of 45 feet a second, 
or 30 miles an hour. Of course this speed maintained 
steadily in an automobile would mean a very fair rate 
of progress, defying the speed laws in many communi¬ 
ties. Most of the birds listed, however, do better than 
the crow. Curlews and jacksnipes can fly 55 and 65 
feet a second, while quails, prairie chickens, and ruffed 
grouse can make 75 feet. The dove can reach a speed 
of 100 feet a second, or 68 miles an hour, although its 
usual rate is less. Redheads, blue-winged teals, green¬ 
winged teals, Canada geese, and different varieties of 
brant can fly over 100 feet per second, ranging in speed 
from 68 to 98 miles an hour, but usually fly at a much 
slower rate. 
When one recalls the authenticated case of the little 
blue-winged teal traced by the Biological Survey from 
Lake Scugog in Canada, to Trinidad, South America, a 
distance of over 3,000 miles, it becomes clear that these 
very high speeds are valuable in enabling the migratory 
birds to reach their winter homes in warmer climates 
within a reasonable period of time. In the case of 
many birds the high speed attainable enables them to 
escape many natural or human enemies. 
SNOW FALL 
T HE greatest snowfall known in the United States 
occurs in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Moun¬ 
tain ranges in the Pacific Coast States, where at 
some places from 30 to more than 40 feet of snow falls 
during the winter season. At Summit, Cal., which has 
an elevation of about 7,000 feet, nearly 60 feet of snow 
have been recorded in a single season, and about 25 feet 
in a single month. 
An appreciable amount of snow usually falls on more 
than 60 days of the year in northern New York, the 
upper peninsula of Michigan, northern Minnesota, and 
northeastern North Dakota, as well as in the higher 
elevations of the northern Rocky Mountains. Snow 
may be expected on as many as 30 days as far south 
as southeastern Pennsylvania, central Ohio, southern 
M isconsin, and southern South Dakota, and on 10 days 
