UP THE MOUNTAINS. 177 



than they are absolutely compelled ; and in many 

 places, especially in Russia and Siberia, they stay 

 the winter through, picking up a precarious sus- 

 tenance on the post-roads and near the farm- 

 houses. In spite of this fact the Snow Bunting 

 may be classed as a regular winter visitor to the 

 British Islands, although its numbers vary con- 

 siderably year by year. Snow Buntings are most 

 aptly named. The mention of their name recalls 

 to me some of the wildest and most wintry days 

 I have ever spent among the birds of days on 

 the dreary sand-banks of the Wash, when the hail 

 and sleet-laden wind has swept like keen knives 

 across the wilderness, and drove the Snow Birds 

 before it like flecks of ocean foam of days in 

 more sheltered districts when the country-side has 

 been inches deep in snow, and the flocks of 

 " Snowflakes" have picked a bare living from the 

 dung-heaps in company with Starlings and even 

 more homely birds. And whilst we are with the 

 Snow Buntings on the lowlands it is well to call 

 attention to this bird's perching on trees. Our 

 scientific wiseacres have stated that this bird never 

 settles on the branches ; but no more absurd error 

 was ever made. On the mountains here, where 

 no trees exist, the bird of course is never seen 

 upon them ; but in lower districts it habitually 

 perches, as I for one have satisfactorily proved 

 by absolutely shooting it from them (winter of 

 1879-80 in Endcliffe Woods, Sheffield). But the 

 Snow Bunting is as interesting in summer far up 

 the hillsides in its mountain home ; as I can testify 

 from seeing it fluttering among the rocks on the 

 summits of the Grampians, although fortune has 

 never yet been kind enough to reward me with a 



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