SO GRAMINIVOEJE. 



under snow, which lies and renders food inaccessible for 

 many months. They often come so suddenly, and with so 

 little prelude of cold, that the bird is sometimes caught by 

 them in its summer plumage, or with that plumage barely 

 beginning to change. In that state it is the least able to 

 endure the cold, and consequently it makes its way farther 

 to the south than when it is caught later and more prepared 

 for the cold. Thus, it is tawny-bunting, pied finch, snow- 

 flake, or white lark, according to the time of the year at 

 which it happens to be caught in the storm and carried away 

 from the regions of the north. 



In the summer it inhabits the rocky and mossy places 

 of the north, where there are no trees, and few bushes ; and 

 picks up its food from the seeds of the carex, and stunted 

 rushes and hard plants which grow and ripen seed there ; 

 and its long and produced hinder claws adapt it for walking 

 on the mossy, boggy, or otherwise loose surfaces upon which 

 these grow. When it migrates to our shores, whether at 

 one time and in one tint of plumage, or at another time and 

 in a different tint, it frequents those places which are most 

 analogous to its native pastures, shunning alike the wooded 

 and the cultivated places, and resorting to the open wilds 

 the uplands of the south if it comes early, and the level 

 wastes near the shores in the north, if it comes later. 



The young, of early broods, if their wings are matured in 

 time, are the first to migrate southward ; and instances. 

 Lave been already mentioned in which the young have an 

 autumnal migration to the south while the old ones continue 

 in the breeding places. There are various reasons why that 

 should be the case. The old ones have to undergo the reno- 

 vation of their plumage, after they have worn it in providing 

 for the young till these were fledged. The old ones are also 

 better tempered to the weather than the birds of the first 

 year, which have experienced no cold. Besides, though the 



