126 BRITISH BIRDS. 



rare, winter visitor to Italy. It is not known to have occurred in Turkey, 

 Greece, or Asia Minor, but occasionally wanders as far as South. Russia. 

 It does not appear to visit Persia, hut Severtzow records it as a rare winter 

 visitor to North-west Turkestan. On the American continent it has been 

 known to wander as far south as Georgia. It has no very near ally. 



Of all the Arctic birds which visit the British Islands in winter the Snow- 

 Bunting is perhaps the favourite. The brilliant contrast between his 

 snow-white head and breast and deep black back, and the similar contrast 

 on his wings and tail, cause the male in full breeding-plumage to be the 

 most conspicuous of all small birds. No bird goes further north than the 

 Snow-Bunting to breed. Capt. Feilden found a nest in Grinnell Land in 

 lat. 82° 33' j it contained four eggs on the 24th of June, and was built 

 within twenty feet of the nest of a Snowy Owl, with some of whose feathers 

 it was lined. Further south it breeds much earlier. It is the earliest spring 

 migrant. Early in April Harvie-Brown and I found them common enough 

 at Mezen in lat. 66°, and by the end of May the last Snow-Bunting had 

 left Ust Zylma in the same latitude on the Petchora. In the valley of the 

 Yenesay they were somewhat later, the last flock passing the Koorayika, in 

 lat. 664°, on the 7th of June. In the former valley we saw no signs of 

 their breeding until we reached lat, 68°, and in the latter I did not meet 

 with them again until I reached lat. 71 i°. When CoUett and I went to 

 Lapland in 1874 we did not meet with the Snow-Bunting until we reached 

 VadsOj in the Varanger Fjord, about lat. 70°. On the 27th of June we 

 found a nest with young, perhaps a week old. In Iceland, where it is 

 said that many Snow-Buntings remain throughout the winter, it breeds 

 much earlier, for Kriiper found well-incubated eggs on the 25th of May. 

 I have a clutch of eggs in my collection obtained by Middendorflf on the 

 Taimur peninsula (about lat. 73^°) on the 15th July 1843 ; they were 

 laid by birds whose first nest, completed about the middle of June, had 

 been destroyed by the flood when the ice on the river broke up. 



The Snow-Bunting seeks the wildest districts and the roughest ground 

 in which to rear its young. High up on the rocky fells, far beyond the 

 pines and above the birches and willows, among the loose stones and 

 fallen crags, where the snow still lies in large patches, or away to the 

 north on the wild tundra, not above but beyond the limit of forest-growth, 

 surrounded by rivers and swamps and lakes and bogs, amongst the piles 

 of drift-wood that strew the banks of the mighty rivers, or the half-rotten 

 logs which lie above high-water mark on the shores of the Arctic ocean, 

 left there ages ago, when the sea-level was much higher than it is now, 

 are the breeding-places of this bird. Perhaps it is the comparatively even 

 temperature enjoyed in summer, where the sun never sets, that tempts the 

 Snow-Bunting into these wild regions, or it may be the abundance of 

 food, the clouds of musquitoes, and the unlimited supply of ground-fruit 



