208 LIFE IN DEATH. 



southerly of its breeding stations of the New World that 

 has been recorded is Southampton Island, in the sixty - 

 second parallel, where Captain Lyons fixed a nest placed 

 on the bosom of a corpse of an Esquimaux child. It was 

 composed of dry grass, neatly lined with deer's hair and a 

 few feathers. Generally the nest is fixed in the crevice of 

 a rock, or on 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 

 pale purple. 



' On the 22nd of July,' says Captain Lyons, ( on remov- 

 ing some drift timber lying on the beach of Cape Parry, we 

 discovered a nest upon the ground containing 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.' 



Besides grubs and insects, these birds feed upon the 

 seeds of the water-plants, and the shelly mollusca which 

 adhere to the leaves. They migrate in large whirling, roving 

 flocks, and commonly settle down upon a country either 

 immediately before or soon after an inundating fall of snow. 

 Macgillivray has observed them in the Hebrides and other 

 parts of Scotland, and described them as flying rather low 

 along the shore, somewhat in the manner of Larks, moving 

 in an undulating line by means of repeated flappings and 

 short intervals of cessation, and uttering a soft and rather 

 low cry, consisting of a few mellow notes not unlike those of 

 the Brown Linnet, and intermixed at times with a sort of 

 stifled scream, or chirr. When they have found a fitting 

 place, they whirl suddenly round, and alight rather abruptly, 

 on which occasion the white of the wings and tail becomes 

 very conspicuous. They run with great celerity along the 

 strand, not by hops like the Sparrows and Finches, but 

 more like Larks and Pipets, and when thus occupied it is 

 not in general difficult to approach them, so that specimens 

 are easily procured. In. i John o'Groat's Journal' for 1854 

 we read : 



' SNOW FOWLS. Numerous flocks of these winter visitants 



