278 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



Selby too gratifies us with the result of his observations on the 

 species in the north of England. The snow-bunting is truly 

 a most attractive bird, not only from its pleasing form and 

 finely-varied plumage, but as one of the very few species met 

 with in the depth of winter on the mountain-top, where, as it 

 flits overhead uttering its pleasingly wild chirp, it brings be- 

 fore the mind the far-distant region within the arctic circle, 

 whence it may have come. 



In ascending in the month of July above the perpetual snow- 

 line in the Alps of Switzerland, to the height of 1 1,000 feet, the 

 greatest elevation I have reached, the snow-finch [Fringilla 

 nivalis), a bird which at a little distance, in size, marking, and 

 note, reminded me of the snow-bunting, was almost ever-pre- 

 sent ; and its little voice, with occasionally that of the Alpine 

 Accentor {Accentor alpinus), seemed, in one sense, strangely 

 out of unison with the stern grandeur of the scenery, where 

 rarely any other sound broke upon the ear than the rent of 

 the glacier or the distant fall of the avalanche. 



The Common Bunting, Emberiza Miliaria, Linn., 

 Is found throughout the island, and is permanently resi- 

 dent. On reading the opinion expressed by Sir Win. Jardine 

 some years ago (in his edition of White's e Selborne'), that 

 there is a migration of buntings to Great Britain in winter, 

 I thought it might be likewise applicable to Ireland ; but on 

 subsequent consideration, did not see good reason to believe 

 that there is any increase to the numbers of these birds bred in 

 the country. The change from the summer to the winter haunts 

 of the bunting might lead to such a supposition, as about the 

 time that our winter birds of passage are arriving, flocks of 

 buntings make their appearance in localities — often hedges 

 along road-sides — which frequenting through the winter, 

 they leave on the genial approach of spring : so late as the 

 end of March they occasionally remain congregated. Their 

 song may be heard in the north throughout the greater part 

 of the year, including occasionally the months of November 

 and December. 



My observation is quite in accordance with that of White, 

 who in his ( History of Selborne' remarks of the bunting, that 

 — " in our woodland enclosed districts it is a rare bird." It 

 is rather an inhabitant of simply arable than of the rich and 

 wooded parts of the country, and where some little portion of 

 wildness still exists, such as is implied in the common name 

 it bears in the north of Ireland of Briar- Bunting. The ditch- 

 bank run wild with " briars n or brambles has more charms 

 for this bird than the "neat trim-hedge," and within the shelter 



