(_Plectrophenax nivalis_) Finch family
_Called also_: SNOW BUNTING; WHITEBIRD; SNOWBIRD; SNOW LARK
_Length_--7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.
_Male and Female_--Head, neck, and beneath soiled white, with
a few reddish-brown feathers on top of head, and suggesting an
imperfect collar. Above, grayish brown obsoletely streaked
with black, the markings being most conspicuous in a band
between shoulders. Lower tail feathers black; others, white
and all edged with white. Wings brown, white, and gray.
Plumage unusually variable. In summer dress (in arctic
regions) the bird is almost white.
_Range_--Circumpolar regions to Kentucky (in winter only).
_Migrations_--Midwinter visitor; rarely, if ever, resident
south of arctic regions.
These snowflakes (mentioned collectively, for it is impossible to
think of the bird except in great flocks) are the "true spirits of the
snowstorm," says Thoreau. They are animated beings that ride upon it,
and have their life in it. By comparison with the climate of the
arctic regions, no doubt our hardiest winter weather seems luxuriously
mild to them. We associate them only with those wonderful midwinter
days when sky, fields, and woods alike are white, and a "hard, dull
bitterness of cold" drives every other bird and beast to shelter. It
is said they often pass the night buried beneath the snow. They have
been seen to dive beneath it to escape a hawk.
Whirling about in the drifting snow to catch the seeds on the tallest
stalks that the wind in the open meadows uncovers, the snowflakes
suggest a lot of dead leaves being blown through the all-pervading
whiteness. Beautiful soft brown, gray, and predominating
black-and-white coloring distinguish these capricious visitors from
the slaty junco, the "snowbird" more commonly known. They are, indeed,
the only birds we have that are nearly white; and rarely, if ever, do
they rise far above the ground their plumage so admirably imitates.
At the far north, travellers have mentioned their inspiriting song,
but in the United States we hear only their cheerful twitter. Nansen
tells of seeing an occasional snow bunting in that desolation of
arctic ice where the _Fram_ drifted so long.