MIGRATION. 281 



most congenial to their wants or constitutions, may 

 be mentioned the snow-bunting; and the snow-bird. 

 The former, although a bird of song, withdraws to 

 the frozen zone to breed and nurture its young. It 

 inhabits not only Greenland, but even the dreadful 

 climate of Spitzbergen, where vegetation is almost 

 extinct, and where scarcely any but cryptogamous 

 plants are found. Yet these buntings are found in 

 great flocks both on the land and ice of Spitzbergen ; 

 it is probable that they breed there, and it is certain 

 that they do so in Greenland, where they arrive in 

 April, and make their nests in the fissures of the 

 rocks in May. The snow-bird, in America, retires 

 northward in April, when the weather begins to be 

 warm, arrives about the Hudson-bay factory in June, 

 and proceeds further north to breed. This species is 

 so numerous that Mr. Wilson, in the 'American 

 Ornithology, 3 says, " In the circuitous route I travel- 

 led, of more than one thousand eight hundred miles, 

 I never passed a day, and scarcely a mile, without 

 seeing numbers of these birds, and frequently large 

 flocks of several thousands.'' 



With reference to the subject of migration in 

 general, and that of the distribution of birds in 

 Europe in particular, the best observations that we 

 have met with are those of M. Temminck, which we 

 therefore present here, as translated from his highly 

 accurate and useful Manuel d'Ornithologie. 



4 The yearlings and the old birds," he says, 

 " rarely travel together in these journeys, which are 

 longer or shorter as the necessity of seeking a fresh 

 supply of food in other climates obliges them to quit 

 those places which fail at certain seasons to furnish 

 them with the means of subsistence. I think I have 

 traced the reason of this separation of families, and 

 the collection into flocks of birds nearly of the same 

 age, to a very natural cause, produced by the diffe- 



