466 PLECTROPHANES NIVALIS. 



of cessation, and uttering a soft and rather low cry, consisting 

 of a few mellow notes, not unlike those of the Brown Linnet, 

 but intermixed at times with a sort of stifled scream or chirr. 

 When they have found a fitting place, they wheel suddenly 

 round, and alight rather abruptly, on which occasion the 

 white of the wings and tail becomes very conspicuous. They 

 run with great celerity along the sand, not by hops, like the 

 Sparrows and Finches, but in a manner resembling that of the 

 Larks and Pipits ; and when thus occupied, it is not in general 

 difficult to approach them, so that specimens are easily pro- 

 cured. Indeed it frequently happens that they allow a person 

 to walk up within five yards, or even less. 



When a large flock has remained for several weeks on a 

 particular part of the coast, where the birds have been much 

 disturbed, it commonly breaks up into small parties, and even 

 then they are not remarkably shy. On the 12th of March 1835, 

 I found them thus scattered along the tide-line, and in the 

 fields between Prestonpans and Cockenzie, as well as on the 

 extensive flats at the mouth of the Esk, at Musselburgh. 

 They were more shy than usual, but I obtained seven specimens. 

 What they pick up on the shore I have not been able to ascer- 

 tain ; for, although I have opened many individuals shot there, 

 I have never found any shells or other marine animals in their 

 stomach. I should therefore be inclined to think that they 

 resort thither merely for sand and gravel, were it not that 

 various respectable authors allege that small mollusca form part 

 of their food. At intervals, they make excursions into the 

 neighbouring fields, alight in corn- yards, at barn-doors, or even 

 on the roads, where they obtain seeds of oats, wheat, polygona, 

 and other plants, which I have found in them. The only other 

 objects found by me in the gizzard or crop, besides gravel or 

 sand, were small pupae. 



Although the American ornithologists speak of their alight- 

 ing on trees, I have never seen them perch on even a bush, 

 or on any other high place than a crag, the toj) of a wall, or a 

 corn-stack, in which respect they resemble our Field Lark. It 

 is not often, however, that they alight on the stacks, for they 

 prefer searching the ground around them. In the villages 



