186 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
with black variegations, and a black bill. Jn winter, bill 
brown, and the plumage endlessly varied. A specimen before 
me, a very fair type, is chiefly white, with a rich dark brown 
on the crown, becoming lighter and warmer on the back of 
the neck and on the rump. The interscapulars are vaguely 
streaked with white, black, and brown, these colors extending 
to the scapulars. Wings and tail, chiefly black and white, 
Under parts, snowy-white, with a light warm brown patch on 
each side of the breast. Specimens have been obtained pure 
white, and unmarked. 
(b). Mr. Macfarlane found on the Arctic coast a “nest sit- 
uated in a cave in a sand-bank.” ‘The eggs, five in number, 
are of a dull white, with perhaps a faint bluish cast, sprinkled 
and spattered with dilute yellowish-rufous, the markings most 
numerous toward the larger end; they measure ‘95 of an inch 
in length by -64 in breadth.” 
(c). The Snow Buntings are quite regular as winter-visitors 
‘to New England, appearing in November, April, and the inter- 
vening months. They are very restless, and roam over the 
country in flocks, which sometimes contain thousands of indi- 
viduals. They have very good powers of flight, and hence can 
take long flights whenever their wishes or instincts prompt 
them to do so. They generally move to the northward when 
long-continued fine weather occurs, and to the southward on 
the advent of heavy snow-storms, and therefore have acquired, 
in their winter-haunts, the name of ‘‘ bad-weather birds,” a title 
which originated in Europe, where they are well known. The 
Snow Buntings for the most part breed in Arctic countries, but 
a pair have been known to build their nest near Springfield, 
Massachusetts, and, says Mr. Maynard,*” “ this species may 
‘breed on the tops of some of the ranges of Maine and New 
Hampshire. I have a note of a well authenticated instance of 
a large flock being seen on Mount Katahdin, in early August, 
1869.” None, however, have ever been reported in summer 
57 “¢ A Catalogue of the Birds of Coos Co., N.H., and Oxford Co., Maine,” .etc.; 
57th species, p. 17 of pamphlet. 
