79 
Genus PLEcTROPHANES. 
A genus composed of the single species known by the trivial names 
of Snow-Bunting and Snowflake, 
160, PLECTROPHANES NIVATIS. ¢ £). 2°.) VolO TD, Pl XXxh 
Snow-Buntine or SNOWFLAKE. 
This very interesting bird is an autumnal and winter visitant to 
the British Islands. Its summer quarters are the countries near to 
and, not unfrequently, within the arctic circle. It breeds in Lapland, 
and probably in suitable situations in all other countries of a similar 
latitude round the globe. 
Genus ZonorricHta. 
A purely American form, comprising about twelve known species, 
one of which has strayed across the Atlantic to the British Islands. 
161. ZonorricHta ALBICOLLIS, 
White-throated Sparrow of American authors. 
“A female specimen of this bird,” says Mr. R. Gray, in his ‘ Birds 
of Western Scotland,’ “was shot near the Broadhill, on Aberdeen 
links, on the 17th of August, 1867.’ This specimen was subse- 
quently sent to Professor Newton for exhibition at the Meeting of 
the Zoological Society of London on the 27th January, 1870. More 
recently a second example, taken near Brighton, was exhibited at a 
Meeting of the same Society by George Dawson Rowley, Esq. 
Family FRINGILLIDA. 
The Finches are a family of birds comprising a larger number of 
members than the Buntings and the Larks, and are even more widely 
dispersed over the earth’s surface than those of any other group. In 
a work limited to the birds of our own islands, it would be out of 
place to give an enumeration of even the genera into which they 
have been separated ; and I therefore confine my remarks to such 
forms as are found in Britain. 
Subfamily FRINGILLINA. 
Genus Passer. 
The true Sparrows are principally confined to the northern parts 
of the Old World, Asia is inhabited by several species, and Europe 
by four or five, two of which frequent the British Islands. 
G2. PASSER DOMUSTICUS dav). «:s) +6) Vol. 11d. Pl. XXXII. 
Common or Hovsz-Sparnow. 
Distributed generally, but somewhat scarce in the northern parts 
