SATO W B UNTING. 325 



SNOW BUNTING-. {Emberiza nivalis) 



PLATE XXI.— Fig. 2. 



Linn. Syst. 308.— Arct. Zool. p. 355, No. 222.-Tawny Bunting, Br. Zool. No. 121.— 

 L'Ortolan de Neige, Buff. iv. 329, PL ml. 497.— Peale's Museum, No. 5900. 



PLECTBOPHANES NIVALIS.— Meter.* 



Emberiza nivalis, Flem. Br. Anim,. p. 79. — Snow Bunting, Mont. Orn. Diet. i. — 

 Bew. Br. Birds, i. p. 148.— Selb. III. Orn. i. 247, pi. 52.— Tawny Bunting, 

 Mont. Orn. Diet. Bew. Br. Birds, i. 150. — Bruent de neize, Temm. Man. 

 d'Orn, i. p. 319. — Emberiza nivalis, Bonap. Synop. p. 103. — Emberiza (plec- 

 trophanes) nivalis, North. Zool. ii. p. 246. 



This being one of those birds common to botli continents, 

 its migrations extending almost from the very pole to a 

 distance of forty or fifty degrees around, and its manners 



* This species, from its various changes of plumage, has "been multi- 

 plied into several ; and in form being allied to many genera, it has 

 been variously placed by different ornithologists. Meyer was the first 

 to institute a place for itself, and, with a second, the Fringilla Lapponica, 

 it will constitute his genus Flectrophanes, which is generally adopted 

 into our modern systems. The discrepancies of form were also seen by 

 Vieillot, who, without attending to his predecessor, made the genus 

 Passerina of the Lapland finch. They are both natives of America ; 

 the latter has been added by the Prince of Musignano, and figured in 

 Volume III. It has also been lately discovered to be an occasional 

 visitant in this country, being taken by the bird-catchers about London. 

 The following very proper observations occur in Mr Selby's account of 

 the Lapland finch : — 



" The appropriate station for this genus, I conceive to be intermediate 

 between Alauda and Emberiza, forming, as it were, the medium of con- 

 nection or passage from one genus to the other. In Alaucla, it is met 

 with that section of the genus which, in the increasing thickness and 

 form of the bill, shows a deviation from the more typical species, and a 

 nearer approach to the thick-billed Fringillidce ; to this section Alauda 

 calandra and brachydactyla belong. Its affinity to the larks is also shown 

 by the form of the feet and production of the hinder claw ; this in 

 Lapponica is nearly straight, and longer than the toe, resembling in 

 every respect that of many of the true larks. The habits and manners 

 of the two known species also bear a much greater resemblance to 

 those of the larks than the buntings. Like the members of the first 

 genus, they live entirely upon the ground, and never perch. Their 



