182 THE BUNTINGS 



There is the same similarity in the call-notes, though the snow- 

 bunting's is given as " zh" and those of the Lapland-bunting heard, 

 sometimes, at night, when the moon shines as "tid" and "tirr" 1 

 Yet Yon Homeyer says that both tones are very like those of 

 Nivalis, though the latter have been compared by Seebohm to 

 the brambling's and greenfinch's. 2 Whether Calcarius has also "a 

 loud tweek," as has Nivalis, when alarmed, I cannot say positively, 

 but, with so many vocal similarities, one more would not be surpris- 

 ing. Audubon refers to the snow- bunting's song as " a few 

 plaintive, but soft and agreeable notes," 3 but this, trilled by the bird 

 when driven southwards beyond its true breeding-home, was, no 

 doubt, but a faint reminiscence. Trevor-Battye, who heard it in 

 Kolguev, calls it " a lovely song, with no touch in it of a bunting's 

 scrape, but a true, wild song, and " (but this, methinks, is somewhat 

 of a fall) " very like a chaffinch's in spring." 4 I would not end with 

 that, so quote the words of one who, though he does not appear to 

 have seen or heard the snow-bunting farther afield than in the 

 Humber district, has yet, without going to Kolguev, seized all the 

 poetry of its song. After remarking how these winter visits of the 

 bird to our shores are appreciated by the bird-lover, he exclaims : 

 " How much more a favourite should it be to those who have watched 

 it in its summer haunts, in the sheltered quiet of some Greenland 

 valley, strewed with the yellow flowers of the little Arctic poppy, 

 or crimson with the blossom of Silene acaulis, that most lovely of 

 northern plants, and there listened to the sweet song of the male, 

 trilled out under the midnight sun, as, perched on some lichen- 

 spotted boulder, or sprig of Arctic willow, he serenades, in her dark 

 cell, his brooding mate." 5 



With this we may pass from the song and courtship of our 

 buntings to those activities which succeed or accompany them ; so, 

 since we are at him, why not begin with our " snowflake " ? In the 



1 Ornithologische Monatsberichte, vol. v. pp. 2, 3. 



2 Birds of Siberia. 3 Ornithological Biography. 



4 Ice-bound in Kolguev. J. Cordeaux, Zoologist, 1881. 



