THE BUNTINGS 195 



support their exhausted, nay, almost congealed, bodies, which seem 

 little larger than the great feathery flakes of the substance from 

 which these delicate creatures have borrowed their name. In com- 

 pressed squadrons, they are seen anxiously engaged in attempting to 

 overcome the difficulties which beset them, amid their perilous 

 adventures. They now glide over the earth, relax the closeness of 

 their phalanx, and, with amazing swiftness, sweep over the country, 

 in search of that food without which they must all shortly perish. At 

 last, when nearly exhausted with fatigue and hunger, some leader 1 

 espies the wished-for land, not yet buried in snow. Joyful notes are 

 heard from the famished voyagers, while, with relaxed flight, and 

 wings and tail expanded, they float, as it were, in broad circles, 

 towards the spot where they are to find relief. They alight, disperse, 

 run nimbly, in masses, from the foot of one corn-stalk to the next, 

 scratch the ground here, pick up a dormant insect there, or nibble 

 the small seeds of the withered grass, mixing them with a portion of 

 gravel. Now two meet and contend for the scanty morsel, etc." 2 All 

 this seems certainly from keen personal observation, and is perhaps 

 the fullest description that we possess. Audubon goes on to say that 

 he caught, near Louisville, " several which were covered with hoar- 

 frost, and so benumbed that they were unable to fly." He adds that 

 " at that season they frequently kept company with the shore-larks, 

 the lark-finches, and several species of sparrow," and also which is 

 interesting, owing to the fact having been since forgotten, denied, 

 and finally re-established, not without some heart-burning that 

 "they frequently alighted on trees, particularly the sweet gum, of 

 which they eat the seeds." 3 It is probable that most, if not all, of the 

 above applies to the Lapland-bunting, as well as to the snow-bunting, 

 and it may be added that whilst both habitually run along the ground, 



1 This well illustrates the difficulties of the theory of leadership amongst birds, which I do 

 not believe in either for rooks or wild geese, much less for snow-buntings. As to them, a lead- 

 ing actual sno\v-flake seems hardly less hard to imagine. 2 Ornithological Biography. 



3 Ibid. If this last be true, the modern statement that the snow-bunting is entirely a 

 ground feeder is not correct. The implication certainly is that the .seeds are eaten in the 

 trees, even if "eat" here is not intended in the past tense. 



