SNOW BUNTING 1657 



an erect, strangely stretched attitude, spreading his tail widely and 

 spreading the conspicuously colored wings backward and downward. 

 In this attitude he directed the piebald surface of back and tail toward 

 the female and then ran quickly away from her. Having run for some 

 meters, he abruptly turned, came back without any display, and then 

 repeated the performance. This specialized display apparently 

 served to demonstrate the conspicuous color patterns of the plumage." 



Sutton and Parmelee describe similar behavior on Baffin Island: 

 "Males who were with females sometimes lifted their wings high above 

 their backs, or scuttled rapidly through the snow, with head lowered, 

 as if showing off. 'Scuttling' males sometimes ran swiftly in one direc- 

 tion, stopped, turned at a right angle, and scuttled off again." 

 Witherby et al. express it as: "Courting male also observed 'dancing' 

 down a scree, raising wings." 



Another display of the male before the female closely resembles the 

 territorial song-flight already described. He ascends 15 to 30 feet or 

 so into the air and, with wings set high or horizontally, flutters to the 

 ground singing mostly during the descent and often after landing. 

 Or he may sing while fluttering down from a precipitous ledge. As 

 Gabrielson and Lincoln (1959) describe it: "the males start court- 

 ship performance, usually rising from a perch somewhere on the 

 ground to a point high in the air and then singing at frequent intervals 

 their rather simple but musical song as they descend, ending it as they 

 reach the ground. The song is given on the upward flight as well as on 

 the descent." 



Immediately following pairing, the male buntings temporarily but 

 dramatically stop singing and remain quiet, except when their mates 

 leave the territory. This led Tinbergen to conclude that the primary 

 function of the song on territory is to attract a mate, to which its 

 warning function is of secondary importance, and he therefore calls 

 it "advertising song." 



After pairing the birds move about and forage together on the 

 territory. The females leave the territory from time to time, but the 

 males seldom do. Mated males seldom court other females, but excep- 

 tions are known. The males continue their strong defense of the 

 territory against other males, and the mated females against other 

 females. As Tinbergen writes: 



Mated females do not tolerate other females in their neighborhood. Fights 

 between two females were of common occurrence. When two pairs met on their 

 common boundary, a light often resulted, and these fights of pair against pair 

 really consisted of two fights: one of male against male, the other of female against 

 female. Although we witnessed hundreds of fights of male Snow Buntings 

 inter se and females inter se, we only once saw a female attacking a male, and this 

 attack consisted of a 6hort pursuit of a retreating male after a prolonged fight 

 between two pairs. We never saw a male attacking a female. 

 646-737 — 68— pt 3— — 27 



