196 SNOW BUNTING. 



" make their nests in the fissures of the rocks, on the moun- 

 " tains, in May; the outside of their nest is grass, the middle of 

 "feathers; and the lining the down of the Arctic fox. They 

 " lay five eggs, white spotted with brown: they sing finely near 

 " their nest. 



" They are caught by the boys in autumn when they collect 

 " near the shores in great flocks, in order to migrate, and are 

 " eaten dried.* 



" In Europe they inhabit during summer the most naked 

 " Lapland Alps; and decend in rigorous seasons into Sweden, 

 " and fill the roads and fields; on which account the Dalecarlians 

 " call them illwarsfogel, or bad- weather birds. The Uplanders 

 " hardwarsfogel, expressive of the same. The Laplanders style 

 66 them Maipg. Leemst remarks, I know not with what foun- 

 " dation, that they fatten on the flowing of the tides in Finmark; 

 " and grow lean on the ebb. The Laplanders take them in great 

 (( numbers in hair-springs for the tables, their flesh being very 

 " delicate. 



" They seem to make the countries within the whole Arctic 

 " circle their summer residence, from whence they overflow 

 " the more southern countries in amazing multitudes, at the set- 

 " ting in of winter in the frigid zone. In the winter of 1778-9, 

 "they came in such multitudes into Birsa, one of the Orkney 

 " islands, as to cover the whole barony; yet of all the numbers 

 " hardly two agreed in colours. 



"Lapland, and perhaps Iceland, furnishes the north of Bri- 

 " tain with the swarms that frequent these parts during win- 

 " ter, as low as the Cheviot Hills, in lat. 52 32'. Their rest- 

 " ing places the Feroe isles, Schetland and the Orkneys. The 

 " highlands of Scotland, in particular, abound with them. Their 

 " flights are immense, and they mingle so closely together in 

 " form of a ball that the fowlers make great havoc among them. 

 "They arrive lean, soon become very fat, and are delicious 

 " food. They either arrive in the highlands very early, or a 



* FAUW. Greenl. 118. t Finmark, 255. 



