THE SNOW BUNTING. 499 



were evidently stragglers, driven there by accidental circumstances. 

 They abound on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, in Western 

 Central Asia, in France, and as far north as Norway, where they are 

 known to breed. Their favourite resorts, according to Meyer, are the 

 borders of woods, hedges, and fields, near a water-course clothed 

 with low willows and bushes. Although very shy, still great num- 

 bers are captured in nets, when they are kept in confinement, and 

 crammed for the table. 



Tne Snow Bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis) rarely shows itself in 



Fig. 217 The Ortolan Bunting. 



France ; and Montagu describes them as being rare in England ; but 

 McGillivray found them in considerable flocks all over Scotland, 

 from the Outer Hebrides to the Lothians. On the 4th of August, 1 830, 

 being on the summit of Ben Macdhui, one of the loftiest moun- 

 tains in Scotland, he observed a beautiful male flitting about in the 

 neighbourhood of a drift of snow, and some days after, in descending 

 from Lochnagar on a botanising expedition, he noticed a flock of 

 eight individuals flying about among the granite rocks of a corrie, 

 evidently a family. " It is, therefore," he thinks, " very probable 

 that it breeds on the higher Grampians." 



