284 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



north and east coasts. At this season it varies a great 

 deal in appearance ; some young birds have few or no white 

 markings, while the amount of white in older specimens 

 largely depends on their age and sex. The hens are less 

 purely marked than the cocks ; but there is enough white 

 on the wings, head, and breast of most of the birds in a 

 flock to make them very conspicuous as they flit about the 

 marshes or winter cornfields. There seems nothing definitely 

 protective about their splashed plumage when they feed on 

 ground clear of snow, as they often find it in their winter 

 haunts. Even in a snow-covered landscape the large admix- 

 ture of reddish and greyish-brown feathers on the back and 

 wings prevents them from blending as completely with their 

 surroundings as the ptarmigan or mountain hare. Nor is 

 the protection apparently more complete in summer plumage. 

 Then the brownish mantle turns to jet-black in the cock, 

 and greyish-black in the hen, by the complete or partial 

 wearing off of the brown tips to the feathers. A Norwegian 

 naturalist describes the bold black-and-white plumage of the 

 cock as forming a striking contrast to the snowfields and 

 moorlands which it haunts ; and the pattern of the hen is 

 almost equally distinct. Although there is an obvious 

 similarity between the snow-buntings' white-splashed plumage 

 and the snowy landscapes which they chiefly haunt, the like- 

 ness has stopped far short of the close imitation seen in the 

 case of the ptarmigan or mountain hare. 



The explanation of this degree of imitation seems partly 

 to be found in the snow-bunting's nesting habits. It builds 

 in cliffs and holes among stones ; and in these comparatively 

 sheltered situations the hen bird does not need to imitate 

 her surroundings so closely as the hen pheasant or wild duck 

 on their open nests among dry brown leaves and herbage. 

 A clue to the protective nature of many strongly contrasted 



