SNOW BUNTING 1665 



and young birds. The adults often molt so many flight feathers 

 within a short interval that they become temporarily almost flightless, 

 and escape their enemies only by scurrying swiftly over the rocks. 



Salomonsen notes that though the molt may not be completed by 

 early October at lower latitudes and in Iceland, it is particularly rapid 

 at high latitudes in Greenland where migration starts in early Septem- 

 ber. This is also true in Ellesmere Island, where we found adults in 

 fresh new plumage by late August. 



The fresh adult fall plumage is essentially the breeding dress 

 heavily overlaid with brown above and, to a lesser degree, below 

 (pectoral band more or less prominent). The plumage is immediately 

 sensitive to abrasion, which produces a great variation of plumages 

 both individually and seasonally. As abrasion continues, certain 

 colored areas become whiter and the wing pattern more pronounced. 

 The bill, which is black during the breeding season, becomes yellowish, 

 often with a dusky tip. 



According to Witherby et al., an incomplete molt affecting the 

 throat and facial region takes place in March, the new feathers being 

 pure white except the ear coverts, which are buffy in males, tawny in 

 females. Continued abrasion in spring produces the boldly black 

 and white breeding plumage of the male. The female becomes a less 

 striking gray and white, characteristically speckled and streaked with 

 brownish to grayish-black above and white below. 



The spring molt, according to Salomonsen, is sided to some extent 

 by the bunting's habit of feeding on hard snow, which wears down the 

 facial feathers. Newly arriving males reach the breeding ground in 

 spring, still veiled with brown, some heavily, and a few individuals 

 may retain traces of the veiling well into the nesting season. Others 

 are in breeding dress complete with black bills as early as April 26, 

 possibly earlier. Changes in plumage and appearance can be sudden. 

 One Ellesmere Island male had considerable brown about the head and 

 neck when we banded it April 29th; only a trace of the brown remained 

 when we recaptured it two days later on May 1st. 



Male buntings are dimorphic in that their primary coverts grade 

 from pure white through black-tipped and largely dark, to almost or 

 completely dark (Manning et al., 1956). Salomonsen considers the 

 pure white and black-tipped to be the normal adult condition, and the 

 uniform black-brown coverts a "retarded" condition frequently, 

 though not invariably, found in first-year birds. Most early arrivals 

 on the breeding grounds have white or lightly black-tipped coverts, 

 indicating that the old birds commonly are the first to migrate north. 



Food. — The deep snows of the low arctic are a great obstacle to the 

 buntings moving northward in spring, and many observers have noted 

 the difficulties the birds encounter in their search for food. In coastal 



