Snowflake Breeds: In the Arctic regions.
Nest: Thickly lined with feathers set in a tussock.
Eggs: 4-6, variable in size and colour, whitish speckled with neutral tints.
Range: Northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America, south in winter into the northern United States, irregularly to Georgia, southern Illinois, and Kansas.
A bird well named, for the Snowflake, hurried from the north by fierce winds and weather, comes to us out of the snow-clouds. Travelling in great flocks, which are de-seribed as numbering sometimes a thousand, they settle down upon the old fields and upland meadows, subsisting upon various seeds. Their winter plumage, by which we alone know them, is exquisitely soft and beautiful, and the birds themselves have a wonderfully mild and spiritual expression as if they had come from an unknown region, and craved a little food and shelter, but conscious that while here they are the veriest birds of passage.
Though a native of Arctic latitudes, Snowflakes, belated on their return migration, have been known to breed in the Northern States. In July, 1831, Audubon found a couple nesting in the White Mountains, and Dr. J. A. Allen notes a pair as breeding near Springfield, Mass. In its home it is said to have a cheerful inspiriting song, but here we only know its Sparrow-like call note.
The Snowflake is very capricious in its visits, as are, in fact, all the winter birds along the Connectieut shore of the Sound. An easterly wind prevailing for several days drives them two or three miles inland behind the Greenfield ridge of hills. During the snowy winter of 1893-94 not a single flock appeared, though the weather was evenly cold and marked by northeasterly storms. On February 15, 1891,—one of the only days of the season when there was sutli-cient snow for sleighing, a day with heavy, drifting clouds and wind gusts which scattered the loose snow so suddenly that it was driven with the sharpness of sand, — I drove for several miles along the road that separates the shore and marshes from cultivation, and was rewarded by seeing Gulls,
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