The Snow-Bunting 43 



often they choose a niche under a rock that lies upon the 

 ground. Nearly always it is well concealed. 



The nest is most cunning!}^ made of grasses and 

 sedges, usually lined with the white feathers of ptarmigan, 

 the white fur of the hare, or the white hairs of the polar 

 bear. In Ellesmereland, where the muskoxen are numer- 

 ous, the nest is usually lined with the long black hairs of 

 that animal. Apparently the birds prefer certain locali- 

 ties, for I have found a dozen or more nests of different 

 years' construction placed about one rock ledge. Whether 

 or not the birds return to the same nesting site I could not 

 determine with certainty; but the factor at Sondre Uper- 

 nivik, in North Greenland told me that a pair built in a 

 niche in the eaves of his station three years in succession. 

 Naturally he thought it to be the same pair. 



June has barely come when the first eggs are laid. 

 The eggs are constantly brooded, most of the time by the 

 female, but sometimes by the male, until they hatch in 

 ten or twelve days. Then both parents are busy all the 

 twenty-four hours of the day catching enough crane-flies, 

 gnats, spiders, flies, and moths to keep their nestful of five 

 or six youngsters from hunger. The youngsters grow so 

 fast that in less than two weeks they leave the nest, and 

 begin fluttering about the rocks near their home. Only a 

 day or two passes before they begin flying about, and in 

 a few days they have begun to shift for themselves. Rarely 

 the mother bird broods a second set of eggs so far north, 

 though sometimes, if her first clutch of eggs be destroyed, 

 she makes a new nest and tries again to bring forth a 

 family. 



I am not sure that the snow-bunting sleeps at all as 

 long as his youngsters demand food. Early and late he is 

 busy, for his food-supply is not so abundant that he can 

 find it easily or in very great quantity. I have come upon 

 him apparently cuddled away on a sunny ledge, but never 

 in the time when he has young ones to care for. It may 



