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Galicia they occur oftener than in other portions of the empire. I can find no record of its 

 occurrence in Greece or Turkey ; but Von Nordmann saw it in Southern Russia in the winter of 

 1835, and again in 1836 and 1857, in the last season as far down as the Crimea, and several 

 were killed on the steppes between Perekop and Simpheropol. There is but one record of its 

 occurrence in Africa, that of a male, which, according to Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, was picked up 

 dead near Cape Spartel: but it has been met with on the Azores; for Mr. Godman, in his 

 ' Natural History of the Azores,' writes as follows : — " A flock of about twenty of these birds 

 appeared during the winter of 1864-65 on the island of Corvo. They were said to be much 

 exhausted when they arrived, and several were caught and kept in cages. At the time I was 

 there I believe there was but one living ; and this was a female. The owner had such an exalted 

 notion of its value that I did not procure it. After I returned to England, Mr. J. P. Dabney 

 kindly sent me a skin of a bird of this species which was killed in Fayal." 



To the eastward the Snow-Bunting occurs throughout Siberia to China and possibly Japan. 

 Eadde says that they winter both above and below the Bureja mountains, and that he saw them 

 often during the winter of 1858-59 in the large Mantchurian villages above and below the town 

 of Aigun, and also met with them on all the large roads in Siberia during the winter. The first 

 arrivals of large flocks in the Bureja mountains were observed on the 10th (22nd) of October, 

 1857. Middendorff saw large flocks on the Baraba steppe in January, but lost sight of them 

 then until he arrived on the Boganida, in 71° N. lat., where he found them on the 11th of May, 

 still in flocks, but partly in summer plumage ; and on the 19th of May they moved further north. 

 On the 2nd of June he observed them in full summer dress, in pairs, on the Taimyr river, busy 

 preparing their nests; and on the 17th of June (in about 73^° N. lat.) he found eggs in all the 

 nests, though none contained their full complement. 



Mr. Swinhoe writes that it visits North China in the cold weather; Captain Blakiston 

 thinks that it may be met with in Northern Japan ; and a live specimen sent to the Zoological 

 Gardens was said to have come from there. 



Eegarding its occurrence in America I am indebted to Dr. Elliott Coues for the following 

 excellent note : — " The Snow-Bunting is conspicuous in the gatherings of boreal Fringillidae that 

 enter the United States at the approach of cold weather, partly in obedience to the mysterious 

 law of migration, partly in the face of a more obvious necessity ; for, like most of its family, it 

 is a true migrant, possessed at the equinoxes by the restless, nameless spirit that impels it 

 onward, be the skies never so fair, and food never so abundant. And yet this periodicity of its 

 nature is not always asserted : the migratory impulse is often held in abeyance ; and then we have 

 accounts of the bird in midwinter in latitudes as high as those in which it breeds ; and, again, 

 the regularity of its movement suffers such interference from vicissitudes of the weather that it is 

 hardly left perceptible, and the little birds, becoming veritable harbingers of cold and storm, are 

 borne upon the breath of boreal winds like the snow-flakes they foretell. On they come swirling 

 in aimless troops, and not alone ; for in their ranks the Lapland Longspurs take place, and flocks 

 of the Eedpolls join the restless march ; the Crossbills and Pine-Linnets accompany them in 

 search of pineries for shelter and food ; the Pine-Grosbeaks come a good part of the way before 

 they refuse to keep on ; the Shore-Larks feed with them in the open grounds ; and occasionally, 

 in some parts of the country, the Buntings have no less distinguished fellow-travellers than the 



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