496 EMBERIZID.E. 



WHATEVER differences of opinion might have existed 

 formerly, it is now well ascertained that the Mountain, the 

 Tawny, and the Snow Bunting of authors, are only terms 

 which refer to one and the same species under different 

 states of plumage. Colonel Montagu, in the Appendix to 

 the Supplement of his Ornithological Dictionary, quotes a 

 portion of a letter to himself from Mr. Foljambe, an ex- 

 cellent practical ornithologist, which first furnished to him 

 a key to the true elucidation of the subject : the extract 

 is as follows : " A few years ago I shot more than forty 

 from the same flock, during severe weather in the month of 

 January, hardly any two of which exhibited precisely the 

 same plumage, but varied from the perfect Tawny to the 

 Snow Bunting in its whitest state ; the feathers of those 

 of the intermediate state being more or less charged with 

 white." 



The Snow Bunting may be generally considered as only 

 a winter visitor to this country, and to the other temperate 

 parts of Europe ; a portion of the young birds of the year, 

 bred in high northern latitudes, annually visiting our islands. 

 It is only in severe weather, and late in the winter season, 

 that the older birds make their appearance, the young birds 

 always venturing farthest to the southward. The Snow 

 Bunting is an inhabitant, during the breeding-season, of 

 the Arctic Regions, and the islands of the Polar Sea. 

 Captain Scoresby says it resorts to the shores of Spitz- 

 bergen in large flocks. It is included by Captain Sabine 

 in his Birds of Greenland ; and he says, also, that it was 

 very numerous in the North Georgian Islands, where they 

 were amongst the earliest arrivals. Sir James Ross, in his 

 Appendix, which has been frequently quoted, says that 

 it abounds in all parts of the Arctic Regions, from the 

 middle or end of April to the end of September. Sir 

 John Richardson states that this bird " breeds in the north- 



