LAPLAND BUNTING i 7 



bird chooses fields without trees, and when the snow falls keeps to the high roads. 

 Nesting all round the pole, in America it has been seen as far south as Colorado, 

 and in Europe it visits northern Italy, while the Siberian birds descend to the 

 valley of the Yang-tsi. Among the conspicuous features of the plumage is a broad 

 white eye-stripe, continued down the sides of the neck ; the crown, throat, and 

 breast are black ; the nape is bright chestnut, the rest of the upper-parts being 

 dark brown streaked with white or rufous, and the under-parts white, while the 

 wings are spotted. The beak is yellow tipped with black, and the legs are wholly 

 black ; the hind claw is nearly straight, and longer than the toe, thereby differing 

 from that of the snow-bunting. The whole length of the bii*d is about 6j- inches. 



The distribution of this species is very similar to that of the snow-bunting ; 

 but to Great Britain it is only a casual autumn and winter visitor, almost unknown 

 in Scotland and the neighbouring isles, although a specimen was recorded from the 

 Flannan Islands in the Outer Hebrides in 1904. In Ireland it appears to be 

 altogether unknown ; and no instance of its nesting in the United Kingdom has 

 been recorded. In this it is unlike the snow-bunting, which breeds regularly in the 

 Shetlands and on Ben Nevis and in certain other parts of Scotland. 



On account of the length of the claw of the hind-toe, which exceeds that of 

 the toe itself, the Lapland bunting, together with two nearly allied North Ameri- 

 can species, is frequently separated generically from the snow-bunting under the 

 name of Calcarius lapponicus, but such distinction seems unnecessary and it is 

 therefore here included in the genus PlectrophaTles, which is typified by the 

 snow-bunting. 



vol. n.- 



