420 



E M B E R I Z A. 



the more inhospitable parts of the country. If, how- 

 ever, these are covered up with snow, the birds are 

 driven to the trodden places ; and the snow-bunting, 

 among the rest, comes in for a share of the droppings 

 of horses, which form a chief source of supply to the 

 birds when the ground is covered. The young of 

 early broods are the first to appear ; they are more 

 brown in the colour, have the bill yellower, and are 

 smaller in size than the mature birds, and hence they 

 have been described as a separate species. 



When very severe snow storms occur at a late 

 period of the winter, the full-grown males sometimes 

 come to Britain in great numbers, and with their win- 

 ter plumage nearly perfect. They are then pure white, 

 with the exception of a portion of the back, the mid- 

 dle coverts of the wings, and some of the tail feathers 

 and the quills, which remain black. It is in this state 

 that they are called pied finches, or snow flakes. The 

 last of these names is very appropriate ; for although 

 most winter birds come before the storm, they are 

 often taken by it on their way, and arrive exhausted 

 amid the driving snow, when many of them perish. 



Norway, or at least some part of the country to the 

 north of the Baltic, is probably the country from which 

 they generally come to Britain. Their natural flight 

 is in all probability to the south, and the continent of 

 Europe the place on which they would land if they 

 kept their direction. But as the length of the parallel, 

 and with that the falling behind the rotatory motion 

 of the earth, increases, they are turned to the west- 

 ward in the very same way that the storm is ; and 

 thus though the unequal motion both of snow flakes 

 and of snow is from the north, they really come from 

 the north-east, the motion of the storm giving addi- 

 tional obliquity to that of the birds. 



The best account of their appearance in Germany 

 (they do not reach the more southerly parts of the 

 continent), is that given by Bechstein. "When the 

 winter is severe," says he, " these birds are seen from 

 December to May, in many parts of Germany, 

 where the)' even approach the villages. I am per- 

 suaded that, if attention were paid to them, they 

 might be seen in every direction during March, on 

 their passage to the north ; whilst the snow is on the 

 ground they are found in company with larks, on the 

 high roads and in the fields, they may then be taken 

 with horse-dung placed in a net, or covered with 

 birdlime, or by clearing a spot of ground of snow, 

 and strewing it with oats. I have had a pair in my 

 room six years without a cage, and they are satisfied 

 with food common for other birds ; if kept in a cage, 

 they must be fed on hemp-seed, oats, millet, rape, 

 and poppy seeds. They appear much delighted 

 whilst bathing : during the night they seem very 

 uneasy, hopping and running about continually. 

 Their strong and piercing cry resembles a loud 

 whistle ; their song would be rather agreeable were 

 it not interrupted in a peculiar manner ; it is a 

 warbling mingled with some high noisy notes, de- 

 scending slowly from shrill to deep, and a little 

 strong and broken whistling. Heat is so contrary 

 to their nature, that they cannot be preserved unless 

 carefully guarded from it. 



As the winter sets in, large flocks of these birds 

 proceed from the north of the Baltic and distribute 

 themselves over the low country in Poland ; but in 

 that longitude their migration extends not further 

 than the Carpathian mountains ; and they begin to 

 disappear on their return to the north iu February 



and March. On the American continent they do 

 not advance farther to the south than the state of 

 Virginia. The numbers of them that assemble in 

 the northduring the summer season are immense, so 

 much so, as to give a character even to the remotest 

 countries which have been visited. Countless thou- 

 sands are found on the ice near Spitzbergen : and 

 there are numbers also in Greenland. They breed 

 in the fissures of the rocks. As already hinted, 

 numbers of them frequent the north of Scotland, and 

 some of them are even understood to breed there ; 

 and in the Orkney islands they are especially 

 numerous. They are not unknown in England, 

 though we believe they seldom come further to the 

 south than Yorkshire. After their long flight*, 

 they are usually much exhausted, but they soon 

 recover and get very fat ; in which condition they 

 are styled ortolans of the north. They are inferior 

 in size, >tnd perhaps also in flavour to the genuine 

 ortolans of the south ; but still, from their numbers, 

 as well as their quality, they form a valuable addition 

 to the food of the northern people. Their appear- 

 ance in the British islands is supposed to betoken a 

 severe winter, or heavy falls of snow. These birds 

 do not perch, but continue on the ground, and run 

 about like larks, which they also resemble in size, 

 and in the length of their hind claws, and by some 

 authors they have been accordingly ranged with 

 that family ; but, from the peculiar structure of their 

 bill, they are now, with more propriety, referred to 

 the tribe of buntings. They sleep little during the 

 night and are very wakeful, and, in the months of 

 June and July, begin to hop about with the 

 earliest dawn. The male sings feebly during the 

 breeding season ; his call note is more agreeable, 

 but that of alarm or anxiety is, on the contrary, loud 

 and shrill. He sings from the beginning of May till 

 the end of Juh r , and often during the night, which 

 they always pass on the ground. The female builds 

 in the crevices of rocks, constructing a nest of 

 grass and feathers, lined with the hair and wool of 

 the arctic fox, or other quadruped, and laying five or 

 six reddish white eggs, spotted with brown, and 

 nearly spherical. The male assists in the duty of 

 incubation. 



S^oSr^. 



Snow-flake. 



The snow bunting is nearly of the same size as the 

 lark, s"ix inches and a half in length, of which the tail 

 measures two inches and two thirds. The beak is half 

 an inch in length, with every characteristic of the 

 bunting species, of a conical form, rather bent at the 

 sides, and having a bony tubercle like a grain of barley 

 at the palate ; its colour in the singing season is entirely 

 black, at other times the point alone is black, the 



