258 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



After such severe weather these flocks lose their nervous- 

 ness and become sufficiently confiding to enter the farm- 

 yards and to share the hens' food. 



At the approach of spring they make their way north- 

 ward, but at times their places may be taken by birds 

 which have wintered farther south. 



The Snow Bunting is even more than the Brambling 

 a circumpolar bird. It is numerous in Iceland during 

 the nesting season, and also in Spitzbergen and Novaj^a 

 Zemlya. In the high north it does not go to the moun- 

 tains to nest, for the cold, or rather the arctic conditions 

 which are necessary to it, are to be found at sea-level, 

 and its nest at times is just above the reach of the tide. A 

 most strange nesting site, and one from which omens might 

 well be drawn by the superstitious, was the bosom of a 

 dead Esquimo child. In the far north, too, the Great 

 Pied Mountain Finch, to give it its earliest name, is said to 

 perch on trees. 



The southward range of the Snow Bunting is not so 

 extensive as that of the majority of migrants. Even in 

 England it is by no means common. In the south of 

 France it is found only during very severe winters, and 

 has also been chronicled from the Azores and Africa. 

 Many of the birds nesting within the arctic circle in Russia 

 migrate south over that vast country, halting only in the 

 Crimea. 



Description. — During the nesting season the cock in 

 his handsome dress is clad entirely in white with the 

 exception of the mantle, shoulder, tail, and the last two- 

 thirds of the primary feathers, which are black. His bill, 

 legs, and feet are black also. 



The female at this time is of a subdued brown, marked 

 with darker brown and black, with the exception of the 

 secondaries, which are white. 



In winter plumage the male has the centre of the 



