RINGOUSEL SNOW-FLECK. 87 



visit us for a short space every autumn, do not come 

 from thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper place to 

 mention, that those birds were most punctual 

 again in their migration this autumn, appearing, 

 as before, about the 30th of September : but 

 their flocks were larger than common, and their 

 stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. 

 If they come to spend the whole winter with us, 

 as some of their congeners do, and then left us 

 as they do, in spring, I should not be so much 

 struck with the occurrence, since it would be 

 similar to that of the other winter birds of pas- 

 sage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at 

 Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the 

 middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and 

 long to be informed whence these travellers come, 

 and whither they go, since they seem to use our 

 hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or 

 snow-fleck, is very amusing; and strange it is, 

 that such a short-winged bird should delight in 

 such perilous voyages over the northern ocean ! 

 Some country people in the winter time have 

 every now and then told me that they have seen 

 two or three white larks on our downs ; but, on 

 considering the matter, I begin to suspect that 

 these are some stragglers of the birds we are 

 talking of, which, sometimes, perhaps, may rove 

 ^so far to the southward l . 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so 

 frequent on the Scottish mountains, and especially 



1 In the snow-fleck, which is now separated from the 

 buntings, and with the Lapland finch forms the genus 

 plectrophanes of Meyer, and modern ornithologists, the wings 

 are of considerable length, fitting them for more extensive 

 journeys than the true emberigae. W. J. 



