SNOW BUNTING. 
3*25 
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. PI. enl. 497. — Peale’s Museum, No. 5900. 
PLECTROPHANES NIVALIS. — Meyer.* 
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 (plectropbanes) 
nivalis, North. Zool. ii. p. 246. 
This being one of those birds common to both continents, 
its migrations extending almost from the very pole, to a 
distance of forty or fifty degrees around ; and its manners and 
* This species, from its various changes of plumage, has been multiplied 
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 
Plectrophanes, 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 ofMusignano, 
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 Alauda, it is met with 
that section of the genus which, in the increasing thickness and form of the 
bill, shews a deviation from the more typical species, and a nearer approach to 
the thick billed Fringillidoe ; to this section Alauda calandra and brachydac- 
tyla belong. Its affinity to the Larks is also shewn, 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 
