THE SNOW-BUNTING. 29 



yellow bunting, at least than that bird does in the middle 

 latitudes of Britain. The nest is in similar places (generally 

 bushes), and the eggs are about the same in number, rather 

 smaller, without the yellowish tinge in the ground, and witl 

 the lines which are mixed with the drops more waved, ^s 

 these birds fly much in company with the yellow buntings 

 in winter, they might be looked for in warmer places a little 

 farther to the north than they have hitherto been found ; 

 though, as they are in a great measure corn-land birds in. 

 their habits, the sheep walks on the southern heights maj^v^ 

 impede their progress to the countries farther to the north, 

 and they cannot be expected on the mountains. 



THE SNOW-BUNTING (Emleriza nivalis). 



The snow-bunting, " snow-bird," " snow-flake," and many 

 other names by which it has been called, has been a sad 

 stumbling-block in the path of those who do not combine 

 a little knowledge of the principles of ornithology with the 

 mere observation of individual birds. It has got various 

 trivial names expressive of differences of colour, and speci- 

 fically it has been called a lark and also a finch. 



Now the fact is that it is a polar bird, inhabiting the 

 arctic zone in both continents, and though not a mountain- 

 top bird like our ptarmigan, yet subject, from the higher 

 latitudes of which it is a native, to greater extremes of 

 seasons than that : it is subject to similar change in its 

 plumage. And farther, as, though it does not migrate very 

 far to the southward, it is a wandering bird, it does not 

 change its plumage so regularly, or so completely in the 

 flocks that migrate, as the ptarmigan do which summer and 

 winter on the same mountain-top. 



The storms in the polar regions set in with very consider- 

 able differences of time in different seasons ; and when they 

 do set in, they lay the native pastures of the bird completely 



