252 ITTLL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



part of the song audible. This whistle may constitute 

 the final note of the song, or the bird may finish his effort 

 with a series of quickly uttered and confused notes. So 

 far as my experience goes the song is never, except during 

 wild and stormy weather, uttered on the ground, the 

 point of vantage being a boulder on the scree near where 

 the hen is brooding on her eggs. 



A Snow Bunting usually has several singing stations 

 that he visits in turn, and on the favourite of these he 

 spends the most of his time. Even at a considerable 

 distance he can be picked up through the glass, for in size 

 he is larger than a chaffinch, and his strikingly handsome 

 plumage of black and white renders him a conspicuous 

 object. I have seen a Snow Bunting, after having sung 

 for a considerable time, fly out into the air, and with strong 

 flight make his way to the far side of the glen, there pre- 

 sumably to continue his singing. At times, too, he will 

 fly up into the air much in the fashion of the Tree Pipit, 

 and, with wings spread V-shape, sail back to his boulder 

 uttering his song. 



Once, while watching a Snow Bunting through the 

 glass, I saw him suddenly rise from the scree and dash 

 backward and forward in a most curious and erratic 

 manner before moving off to a farther part of the hill- 

 side, where, I imagine, his mate must have been sitting. 

 In contrast to those of his tribe which are seen in our glens 

 at the approach of winter, the Snow Bunting at his nesting- 

 ground is a singularly confiding bird, and will allow the 

 ornithologist to stalk him to within a few yards without 

 leaving his singing-station. One season, having noted 

 that a certain individual bird invariably spent the greater 

 part of his time singing from a little moss-covered knoll, 

 I erected my camera a few feet off, covered it with 

 stones, and, having attached 100 feet of tubing to it, 

 moved a short distance away in the hope that the bird 



