THE SNOW BUNTING. 
239 
ings for a mile along the highest part of a road crossing the 
Belfast mountains, picking like sparrows at the oats in the horse- 
dung. When there is neither frost nor snow, they may be met 
with occasionally in the lower grounds and on the sea-shore ; to 
the latter they are obliged to resort when the weather sets in very 
severe. During the great snow-storm, early in March, 1827, 
flocks appeared in the outskirts of the town of Belfast ; and such 
numbers were killed on the sea-shore in its vicinity, that they were 
purchased by Mr. Sinclaire, as the cheapest food he could procure 
for his trained peregrine falcons. Although of regular passage to 
the Belfast range of mountains, snow-buntings are much more 
numerous in other, and less frequented, mountainous districts in the 
county of Antrim, as about Newtown-Crommelin and Clough. At 
the former of these places, where the Bev. G. M. Black was 
several years resident, he always observed them during the winter 
in very large flocks, in which not more than one in twenty were 
adult individuals. Prom the other locality, which is in the same 
district, examples have been brought to me by Mr. J. B. Garrett, 
who also supplied the following note. January the ^th } 1831:— 
“ When shooting to-day about two miles from Clough, I met with 
an immense flock of snow-buntings, out of which I killed thirty 
at one discharge, as they flew past me. Their call resembled the 
chirping of the grey-linnet, and the number of wings made a 
considerable noise, as the flock, consisting of several hundreds, 
swept by : some were nearly white, and others of a dark-brown 
colour.” In any of the flocks which have come under my own obser- 
vation, the adult males bore only a small proportion to the females 
and immature birds ; but, except in very small flocks, they were 
always present throughout the winter.* This species is men- 
tioned under the name of cherry-chirper !, in Butty’s Natural 
History of Dublin, as “ found on the strand in December, 
1717, and kept in a cage until December, 1718, and fed with oats, 
hemp-seed, and cuttlings.”— Vol. i. p. 317. 
* Mr. Macgillivray’s observation accords with this (vol. i. p. 465). In some of 
the latest works on British ornithology (Yarr. p. 426, &c.), the adult birds are stated 
to appear in Great Britain only late in the winter, or when the weather is very severe. 
The earliest seen in two years (Oct. 18th and 23rd,) about Belfast, were adult males! 
