76 ALLEN'S NATURALISTS LIBRARY. 



slightly washed with fulvous ; wing-coverts blackish-brown, 

 tipped with white; bastard- wing, primary- coverts, and quills 

 blackish-brown, edged with whitish ; eyebrow and under surface 

 of body dull white ; the ear-coverts dull ashy ; sides of upper 

 breast ashy-brown. Total length, 6 inches ; wing, 3*8. 



In winter, when the Snow-Bunting is chiefly captured in 

 England, the plumage is altogether more rufous or even chest- 

 nut, the paler edges to the feathers concealing the full plumage 

 underneath. The summer dress is gained by the wearing off 

 of the light margins to the feathers. 



Range in Great Britain. Chiefly known as a winter visitant, 

 large flocks occurring on the eastern coast, especially in severe 

 weather, when the Snow-Buntings are found some distance 

 inland. Within the last ten years the species has been dis- 

 covered to breed in Scotland, a nest having been taken in 

 Sutherlandshire in 1888 by Messrs. Peach and Hinxman, and 

 again by Mr. John Young in 1888, while in 1893 a nest was 

 found in Banffshire by a party of naturalists. It had already 

 been said to nest in Unst, the most northern of the Shetland 

 Isles. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Snow-Bunting is an 

 arctic bird, and has been found nesting in Grinnell Land by 

 Colonel Feilden during the voyage of the "Alert" in lat. 82 

 33 ' N. It is a circumpolar species, being found in the 

 Faeroes, Iceland, Novaya Zemlia, Spitzbergen, and also, as 

 Mr. Seebohm says, " breeding on the tundras of the Arctic 

 Regions, beyond the limit of forest growth." It also inhabits 

 the arctic portions of North America, and migrates south in 

 winter, reaching the Mediterranean countries in Europe, and 

 Georgia, in the United States. 



Habits. Usually found frequenting the sea-shore or the 

 adjacent lands. Here the birds keep in flocks, feeding on seeds, 

 and are not very shy, their black and white plumage, however, 

 rendering them always conspicuous. For the nesting season 

 the flocks disperse, and the birds are only found in their breed- 

 ing haunts in pairs, and an interesting account of the nesting 

 of the species in different parts of Northern Europe and 

 Siberia is given by Mr. Seebohm. On the Yenesei, " where 



