444 PLECTRUPHANKS NIVALIS. 



of my friends of the mountain. I am told they are likely to make 

 a long visit, that when the snow is deep they will be fed and snared. 

 But many will escape, and perhaps before Christmas some of them will 

 see your noble cedar-trees at Oatlands. There must be hard weather 

 first. Even up here the bird is called Pulimu-kamen, the Snow- 

 Finch \ 



§ 2400. 0/ie.—" Iceland." From Mr. D. Graham, 1847. 



[Mr. Henry Mllner took Mr. Graliam to Iceland in 1846 (c/. §§ 1305, 1306).] 



^ 2401. Omc. — Loysinga Ijall, Stromoe, Faeroes, 13 July, 1849. 

 ''J.W.ijjse." 



Snow-Finch. — We first fouud breeding on Loisinga Fjadl, near 

 the s^uinmit; one pair. One of our party found the nest with some 

 difficulty. It was a foot or so under a stone which we moved. 

 There were in it four young, nearly full-fledged, and one egg — rotten 

 and with two holes in it. Such as it is, 1 prize it much. The young 

 reached Thorshavii alive by the hands of the carpenter, but died 

 under Sysselmand Miiller"-^. The young had a deal of white about 

 them. The nest was neatly made of grass and wool. I shot the 

 male, he had insects in his mouth ; the female was very shy. 



1 [The foregoing was written by Mr.Wolley from Muoniovara, 8tli October, 1853 — 

 after his tirst season in Lapland — to Mr. Hewitson, for the use of that gentleman, 

 in the third edition of his ' Eggs of British Birds ' which he was then bringing out, 

 and he therein printed (pp. 185, 186) the greater part of it. What follows will 

 shew that Mr. WoUey's experience of the species was greatly increased in the five 

 succeeding years, all of it, however, confirming the accuracy of his previous state- 

 ments. He always objected to speak or write of the Snow-Bunting, maintaining 

 that it was a " book-name," and of comparatively recent invention, while the only 

 bird properly entitled to be called a " Bunting " was the Emberiza oniliaria. All that 

 is true enough, but common custom was too strong for him, and in the next year he is 

 found using the word in the more general sense, which for a long while has been 

 accepted. No doubt the name Pulimu-kainen (more properly written, I believe, 

 Pulmukainen) is applied to the bird in Northern Finland, but Mr. Wolley seems to 

 have been misinformed as to its meaning. Lumi-Pirkku, which is literally Snow- 

 Bunting, seems to be that by which the bird is more commonly known. — Ed.] 



'■^ [The fSysselmand did not mention this fact in his ' Fa^roernes Fuglefauna ' 

 (Vid. Medd. Nat. Foreining, 1862, Kjobenhavn, 1863, p. 17), and, writing no doubt 

 from memory, says that the nest Mr. Wolley found contained five young, without 

 noticing the egg. In Baron von Droste's German translation of Herr Miiller's 

 paper (Journ. fur Oru. 186lt, p. 117) uutice of the nest is omitted.— Ed.] 



