126 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



the melodious, flute-like notes are fuller, and the bird in confinement will only 

 give utterance to them during the first hours of June and July nights. The Snow- 

 Bunting remains, however, so utterly intractable, crying like one possessed when 

 any person approaches its cage, that it is impossible to make friends with it, and 

 one generally ends by once more giving the peevish fellow his liberty. 



The Lapland Bunting, on the other hand, ceases fluttering after one or two 

 weeks confinement if one keeps renewing its food, and soon becomes so tame that 

 it will take flies from the finger. It also invariably accomplishes its autumn 

 moult to perfection, and in a very short time." (Birds of Heligoland, pp. 385-386.) 



Stevenson's experience of this species as a cage bird seems to have been much 

 the same as Gatke's ; he says : " Unlike most birds when first confined in a cage, 

 it seemed perfectly at home, feeding readily on the seed placed for it, and both 

 in its gait and manner of looking up, with the neck stretched out, reminded me 

 of the actions of a quail. In the aviary of Mr. J. H. Gurney, this bird assumed 

 its full summer plumage in the following spring, and thrived so well in its new 

 abode, that over-feeding was probably the cause of its death in May, 1856, when, 

 for the second time, it had acquired the black head and plumage of the breeding 

 season, and was certainly a perfect lump of fat when skinned for the purpose of 

 preservation." (Birds of Norfolk, Vol. I, p. 181). 



The food of this species consists largely of insects in the summer and seeds 

 in the winter ; but in confinement it should be treated like the other Buntings. 

 It is undoubtedly the most desirable of all the British Buntings for the aviculturist, 

 and should certainly be freely imported as a cage-bird. 



