THE SNOW BUNTING. 



297 



and small shell-fish, and become, during their stay here, 

 very fat, and are accounted as delicate eating by epicures, 

 for whose tables they are killed in great numbers. 



The following interesting account of the habits of this 

 species is by Wilson. It is partly compiled from the observa- 

 tions of Mr. Pennant : 



" These birds," says Mr. Pennant, " inhabit, not only .Greenland, 

 but even the dreadful climate of Spitzbergen, where vegetation is 

 nearly extinct, and scarcely any but 

 cryptogamous plants are found. It 

 therefore excites wonder, how birds 

 which are graminivorous in every 

 other than those frost-bound regions 

 subsist, yet are there found in great 

 flocks, both on the land and ice of 

 Spitzbergen. They annually pass 

 to this country by way of Norway ; 

 for, in the spring, flocks innumer- 

 able appear, especially on the Nor- 

 wegian isles, continue only three 

 weeks, and then at once disappear. 

 As they do not breed in Hudson's 

 Bay, it is certain that many retreat 

 to this last of lands, and totally uninhabited, to perform, in full 

 security, the duties of love, incubation, and nutrition. That they 

 breed in Spitzbergen is very probable; but we are assured that 

 they do so in Greenland. They arrive there in April, and make 

 their nests in the fissures of the rocks on the mountains 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 Lap- 

 land alps ; and descend in rigorous seasons into Sweden, and fill the 

 roads and fields, on which account the Dalecarlians call them 



