178 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



autumn and winter winds have borne away the 

 seeds, and blown down the reeds, the bird goes to 

 other pastures, associating with its yellow brothers, 

 and other grain-eating birds; and when the 

 weather is severe approaching houses and farm- 

 yards. 



Although the SNOW BUNTING, or SNOW-FLAKE, is 

 only a winter visitor to this country, it deserves a 

 short notice on account of some interesting points 

 in its history. It is, during the breeding season, 

 an inhabitant of the Arctic regions and the islands 

 of the Polar Sea ; and Linnaeus, in his tour in Lap- 

 land, observes that it is said to be the only living 

 animal that has been seen 2000 feet above the line 

 of perpetual snow, in the Lapland Alps. A travel- 

 ler in Norway says, " We saw the snow buntings 

 in their beautiful plumage of black and white, and 

 found a nest with the young under some loose 

 stones." The male bird attends assiduously on 

 his mate, and often rises up in the air when he 

 goes from the nest, singing sweetly, and with his 

 wings and tail spread like the tree pipit. It breeds 

 in the northernmost of the American islands ; and 

 Captain Lyon found its nest of dry grass, carefully 

 lined with a few feathers and the hair of the deer, 

 at Southampton Island, singularly placed. 



4 'Near the large graves," says the captain, 

 in his interesting description of an Esquimaux 



