258 



of plumage, with sex and age and season, attest its abundance in different parts of British 

 America ; and of late our knowledge of its range has steadily progressed westwards, till at length 

 we have it (Trans. Chicago Acad. i. p. 283), in those high latitudes, on the very shores of the 

 Pacific. ' By far the most abundant of the land-birds which are found on the Island of St. 

 Michael,' writes Mr. Bannister. ' It appeared there about the 6th of May, and from that time 

 until the middle or latter part of September was observed in great numbers over the island. I 

 did not find the nest, although the birds were started up by the hundred on every walk over 

 the island; and I therefore think it must be very carefully concealed.' With the records 

 you, of course, have from your side of the water, this completes the evidence of circumpolar 

 distribution." 



In its habits the present species bears resemblance both to the Larks and the Buntings. It 

 runs with celerity, with body and head stretched forward like a Lark, and will proceed for some 

 time before taking wing ; it is restless, but not shy, and by no means quarrelsome, living in perfect 

 harmony with other small birds. When frightened, or at the approach of any bird of prey, it 

 squats and hides in any suitable depression in the ground ; its flight is rapid and light, with a 

 wave-like rise and fall, varying in long distances in the shortness or length of its dips. It 

 perches not unfrequently on a fence, bush, or tree, though it is more commonly found on the 

 ground. It is, Pastor Sommerfeldt states, an ' ; excellent songster, and lets its clear full note be 

 heard when it rises, fluttering, high in the air, and gently descends ; but the song discontinues 

 when the bird has descended and with closed wings drops in a slanting line on to some small 

 elevation on the ground." 



Its call-note, according to Naumann, " closely resembles that of the Snow-Bunting, but is not 

 so strong, and higher in tone, but also with an ' itirrr! It has a pleasant high note ' twui,' not 

 unlike that of a Siskin, but much stronger." The male has a pleasing but peculiar song, which 

 seems to be composed of that of the Common Lark and Linnet together, that of the former 

 appearing as the basis. It consists of several strophes, which, as in the Lark, follow each other 

 quickly, and some are repeated again and again. If one were not to see the songster, one would 

 be inclined to believe that it was a species of Lark or a Sky-Lark shortening its song. It is an 

 unwearied songster. The female twitters, but only indistinctly, and has no connected song. 



Its range during the breeding-season extends throughout the whole of the upper portion of 

 the Palsearctic and Neartic regions. It breeds not uncommonly in Greenland, Northern Iceland 

 (for Mr. Benzon informs us that he has the eggs from Husevig), Scandinavia, Northern Russia, 

 and Siberia, and the high north of America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Our friend 

 Mr. P. Collett, of Christiania, who has taken the nest of this species in Norway, writes to us 

 that " it is principally distributed in Finmark, as well in the west as in the eastern parts 

 towards Russian Lapland. Southwards it breeds (in less numbers) down at least to the Arctic 

 circle, also on the islands, as Lofoden. One little colony inhabits the dry and bush-grown parts 

 of the moors by Jokstuen, on the Dovre-fjeld (62°); and this is probably the most southern place 

 in Europe where it is found breeding. This colony I visited in 1870, 1871, and 1872, shot 

 several birds, and on the 9th of June, 1871, found a nest containing six fresh eggs. It was 

 placed under a dwarf birch (Betula nana), and composed of fine grass (principally Festuca ovina), 

 the inside being covered with feathers of the Wild Duck. By these feathers, which are never 



