30 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 



A great wanderer is the Snow Bunting. It makes its 

 nest in the Arctic and Subarctic Region, and is the first 

 passerine bird to penetrate into those regions with the 

 return of spring, before the snow is melted. In winter 

 they come south, usually in large flocks, to the northern 

 United States, sometimes as far south as Indiana, Mis- 

 souri, Kansas, Colorado and Oregon. They are decidedly 

 gregarious and delight to fly in the stormiest weather. 

 Their appearances is often considered the harbinger of 

 snow, and they return northward with the disappearance 

 of snow. All are gone from the United States by the end 

 of April. They are said to be much less numerous than 

 formerly in the regions which they visit regularly in win- 

 ter. One of the reasons for the decrease is that they have 

 been slaughtered by hundreds for food and for millinery 

 purposes, the beauty of the bird in its spring plumage of 

 black, white and brown rendering it particularly attrac- 

 tive as a ''hat bird." It is also said that thousands of 

 heads of Snow Buntings were palmed off on county 

 clerks as those of English Sparrows, when bounties were 

 paid on them. It may be said that bounty laws under the 

 best conditions are expensive and unsatisfactory, and as 

 far as the English Sparrow is concerned have proved to 

 be extremely unwise and ineffective, as many of our val- 

 uable birds have been destroyed and bounties illegally 

 paid. 



Better acquainted than with the Snow Bunting are we 

 Missourians with its cousin, the Lapland Longspur, be- 

 cause we have it as a regular winter visitant, appearing 

 from the north in November and remaining till March, 

 exceptionally as in the cold spring of 1907 till the middle 

 of April. They are similar in general appearance to the 

 Snow Bunting, but with a large black patch on the breast 

 and a chestnut collar on the back of the neck. In early 

 winter the black is obscured by white tips of the feathers. 

 It breeds in the northern part of both hemispheres and 

 comes south to the United States, chiefly the middle 



