LAND BIRDS OF THE DUNES 



very suggestive of a snow flurry. On their 

 arrival in late October their bodies are largely 

 ^' veiled '' in chestnut brown, for many of the 

 feathers look as if they had been dii3ped in 

 a brown wash. As the winter season advances 

 and spring approaches, the brown tips are 

 more and more frayed and worn away, and 

 without any molt the birds become in the 

 spring beautifully black and white. The nup- 

 tial dress, therefore, is present in the fall but 

 is concealed beneath a brown duster. It is 

 thought by some that the brilliant spring 

 dress of male birds is due to the exuberant life 

 and passion of the male at that season, but 

 in the case of the snow biniting, as well as of 

 the Lapland longspur, to be presently de- 

 scribed, and of a number of other birds, the 

 nuptial dress is in reality produced at the end 

 of the previous summer, when the passions 

 are at their lowest ebb. 



The call notes of the snow bunting are sweet 

 and melodious whistles, interspersed with rip- 

 pling trills, but changed to rasping tzees when 

 the birds chase each other. Early in April, 

 before they leave us, they indulge at times in 

 low warbling songs, suggestive of those of the 

 purple finch, and when a flock of a hundred 



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