THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 107 

 A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XXXI JUNE, 1919 NO. 2 



OLD SERIES VOL. XXXI. NEW SERIES VOL. XXVI. 



THE SNOW-BUNTING, AN ARCTIC STUDY IN 

 BLACK AND WHITE. 



BY W. ELMER EKBLAW 



111 his far polar home, a thousand miles beyond the 

 Arctic Circle, the snow-bunting {Plectrophenax nivalis 

 nivalis), a pretty study in black and white, is the only 

 songster of all the birds that come so far North. In the 

 vast reaches of the lonely rock-bound islands of the Arc- 

 tic Archipelago and northern Greenland, the only sound 

 that breaks the all-enveloping silence for months at a time, 

 is the snow-bunting's sweet vibrant song, happy and mu- 

 sical as the tinkle of the mountain brook. To those of us 

 who know him only in winter, when he comes to us in his 

 brown and buff overcoat, silent except for his plaintive 

 call-chirp, the striking beauty of his black and white suit, 

 and the compelling sweetness of his voluble song would 

 indeed be a pleasant surprise. 



No shore seems too desolate, no rock ledge too bare, 

 for the snow-bunting. Everywhere throughout the North, 

 wherever man has been in summer, the snow-bunting has 

 greeted him. Even the explorers who have crossed the 

 great ice-cap of Greenland have reported hearing his song, 

 or seeing him, as they have sledged along their lonely, 

 dreary way. The snow-bunting, and the poppy, and the 

 Eskimos, are all alike in their fearlessness, their cheeri- 

 ness, and their love of the North. 



