THE SNOW BUNTING 



PLECTROPHENAX NIVALIS 



Gealag 'n t'sneachdaidh, Gealag-an-t-sneaciid, Eun an-t-sneachda 

 (Gaelic) ; Podorosghnik (Russian) ; Orlotan de Niege (French) ; 

 ScHNEEAMMER (German); Snj6titlingur = Snow twitterer (Ice- 

 landic) ; Snaatool (Sheltand). 



Even more than the Ptarmigan is the Snow Bunting a 

 dweller of the remote and desolate mountain lands, where 

 there is silence always. The snow-bird makes its home 

 amongst the great masses of granite scree where is an 

 entire absence of vegetation, and over which fierce winds 

 sweep so often, even during the finest season of the year. 

 On only the very highest of our Scottish hills is the Snow 

 Bunting to be found during the season of its nesting. 

 Whereas the Tarmachan rarely hatches off her brood 

 above the 3500 foot line, I have never known the Snow 

 Bird to be seen below this level during the months of 

 summer ; and during those bright and sunny days, when 

 even on the huge hills the air is still, I have heard him 

 in full song above the 4000-foot level. 



There is a certain glen, buried deep amongst the big 

 hills, and at its highest point, almost 4000 feet in elevation, 

 where the Snow Bunting for years nested in security. 

 Many days of pleasant memory have I spent there with 

 the small people as my companions. It was in the very 

 early hours of the morning of a July day that I reached 

 the cairn of the precipitous hill guarding the glen to the 

 east. A west wind brought with it soft filmy mist-clouds, 

 which sped softly over the hill-top, hiding the first rays of 

 the sun and blotting out all distant view. But at the head 



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