SNOW BUNTING. 427 



is Southampton Island, in the sixty-second parallel, where 

 Captain Lyons found a nest placed in the bosom of the 

 corpse of an Esquimaux child. Its nest is composed of dry 

 grass, neatly lined with deer"'s hair and a few feathers, and 

 is generally fixed in the crevice of a rock, or in a loose pile of 

 timber or stones. The eggs are greenish white, with a circle 

 of irregular umber brown spots round the thick end, and 

 numerous blotches of subdued lavender purple. On the 22nd 

 July 1826, in removing some drift timber lying on the beach 

 of Cape Parry, we discovered a nest on the ground contain- 

 ing four young Snow birds. Care was taken not to injure 

 them ; and while we were seated at breakfast, at the distance 

 of only two or three feet, the parent birds made frequent 

 visits to their offspring ; at first timidly, but at length with 

 the greatest confidence, and every time bringing grubs in 

 their bills. The Snow Bunting does not hasten to the 

 south on the approach of winter with the same speed as the 

 other summer birds ; but lingers about the forts and open 

 places, picking up grass seeds, until the snow becomes deep ; 

 and it is only during the months of December and January 

 that it retires to the southward of the Saskatchewan. It 

 usually reaches that river again about the middle of Fe- 

 bruary ; two months afterwards it attains the sixty-fifth pa- 

 rallel of latitude, and in the beginning of May it is found on 

 the coast of the Polar Sea. At this period it feeds upon 

 the buds of the Saxifraga appositifolia, one of the most 

 early of the arctic plants ; during winter its crop is generally 

 filled with grass seeds. In the month of October, Wilson 

 found a large flock running over a bed of water plants, and 

 feeding, not only on their seeds, but on the shelly mollusca 

 which adhered to the leaves ; and he observes that the lonir 

 hind claws of these birds afford them much support when so 

 engaged. The young are fed with insects." Mr. Nuttall, 

 in his Ornithology of the United States and Canada, says 



