EMBERIZIN^. 



225 



THE SNOW-BUNTING. 



Plectrophenax nivalis (Linnaeus). 



The Snow-Bunting is principally a cold-weather visitor to the 

 British Islands, frequenting the Shetlands from September onward, 

 though seldom reaching the east coast of England until October, 

 and generally returning northwards in March or April. For more 

 than a century, however, pairs had been noticed in summer on 

 several of the higher mountains of the Scottish mainland, where 

 they undoubtedly bred, but it was not until July 1886 that Messrs. 

 Peach and Hinxman discovered the nest and young in Sutherland. 

 Next, Mr. J. Young took a nest with five eggs in June 1888 ; while 

 in 1893 a nest was found by several ornithologists in the Cairn- 

 gorms, and the species is evidently on the increase there, as well 

 as on Ben Nevis and other mountains. In the Shetlands, Saxby 

 had already obtained a nest with three eggs on Unst, and others 

 have been taken on Yell. 



In the Faeroes many Snow-Buntings breed, and in winter they 

 are abundant there, as they are throughout the year in Iceland ; 

 while northward. Col. Feilden found them nesting on Grinell Land 

 in 82° 33' N. In Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, 

 Siberia, and the Arctic regions generally, this species is widely 

 distributed in summer ; migrating southwards in winter to Georgia 



T 



