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the Arctic winter. It has occurred in Great Britain, but must be looked on as one of the rarest 

 of the stragglers that occasionally visit our shores. 



Yarrell (B. Birds, i. p. 609) speaks of it as having been obtained in Hulston fir trees, 

 Lancashire; and a female in his own collection was, he says, shot some years previously at 

 Harrow, in Middlesex. Knox records two from Ashdown Forest, and one from Petworth, 

 Sussex; and Stevenson, writing respecting its occurrence in Norfolk, says (B. of Norf. i. 

 p. 235) that " the brief records respecting it seem to consist of a statement by Messrs. Paget 

 in their ' Sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth,' ' that a flight of these birds were 

 observed on Yarmouth Denes in November 1822,' and the fact of a pair having been shot at 

 Raveningham, in the act of building, as noticed by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher in their ' Birds of 

 Norfolk' (Zoologist, p. 1313)." It is said to have bred at Bungay (in Suffolk) and at Yarmouth ; 

 but these statements are very doubtful. Besides these records of its occurrence, Mr. Harting, in 

 his ' Handbook of British Birds,' gives the following, viz. : — one, Bill Quay, Newcastle ; several, 

 Pembrokeshire (Fox, Syn. Newcast. Mus. p. 65) ; one, Worcestershire, prior to 1834 (Hastings, 

 Nat. Hist. Wore. p. 65); one or more, Eccles, Berwickshire, prior to 1835 (Thomps. Stat. Ace. 

 Eccl.); one or more, Kent (Pemberton Bartlett, Zool. 1844, p. 621); one, Eochdale, Lancashire, 

 Feb. 1845 (Clarke, Zool. 1845, p. 1025) ; one, Somersetshire (Baker, Somersets. Arch. Proc. 1851, 

 p. 144); and one, Taunton (Prideaux, Zool. 1862, p. 3474). 



Pennant observed it in Aberdeenshire in 1769; and, according to Mr. Robert Gray (B. of 

 W. of Scotl. p. 152), it is included by Dr. Burgess about twenty years afterwards in his list of 

 the birds of the parish of Kirkmichael, in Dumfriesshire ; and it is likewise mentioned in the 

 Statistical Account of the parish of Eccles, in Berwickshire, as a rare visitor about thirty-five years 

 ago. It is included in a catalogue of the animals and plants of the Esk valley, in Midlothian, 

 published in 1808 ; and Don includes it in his fauna of Forfarshire; but Mr. Gray adds that he 

 can find no reliable record of its occurrence in Scotland since 1833 ; but Macgillivray (Nat. Hist. 

 Deeside, p. 403) records one from Braemar, in August 1850; and Mr. Harting refers to one 

 having been seen at Dunkeld, his informant being Colonel Drummond-Hay. 



According to Mr. Thompson (B. of Ireland, i. p. 276) one was shot on the 20th December, 

 1819, at the Cave-hill, near Belfast, but it does not appear to have been preserved. 



I may remark that many of the above-recorded occurrences are open to great doubt. 



In Scandinavia it is common, breeding in the high north, and wandering southward during 

 the winter. In Norway it breeds, Mr. Collett informs me, " in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, 

 in the Saltdalen, near Bodo, and in autumn and winter visits the southern lowlands, often in 

 large numbers. Along the west coast of Norway it is only seldom met with ; but in the interior, 

 in Hamar and Christiania Stifts, it occurs regularly from October to March. It does not appear 

 to have as yet with certainty been known to occur north of the Arctic Circle ; but it may possibly 

 breed in South Varanger, as Nordvi obtained its eggs from Enare." On the Swedish side it is 

 found in the summer in Lapland ; and, according to Professor Sundevall, it does not at that 

 season come as far south as Dalecarlia or Wermlancl, but in winter is found as far south as 

 Skane, though it is only a rare straggler in that part of Sweden. Mr. Collett informs me that 

 " it first appears near Christiania in flocks in the last days of October, when the cold weather 

 sets in; and the last are seen about the end of March. It is almost always common near 



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