III.] THE SNOW-BUNTING AND THE PTARMIGAN. 
129 
other flies away only for a short time until it observes that its 
mate is left behind. It then flies back, swims with evident 
distress round its dead friend, and pushes it with its bill to get 
it to rise. It does not, however, spend any special care on its 
nest or the rearing of its young, at least ^to judge by the nest 
which Duner found at Bell Sound in 1864. The position of 
the nest was indicated by three eggs laid without anything 
below them on the bare ground, consisting of stone splinters. 
The flesh of the phalarope is a great delicacy, like that of other 
waders which occur in the regions in question, but which I 
cannot now stay to describe. 
During excursions in the interior of the land along the coast, 
one often hears, near heaps of stones or shattered cliffs, a 
merry twitter. It comes from an old acquaintance from the 
home land, the snoesjparfven or snoelaerl^an, the snow-bunting 
{Emheriza nivalis, L.). The name is well chosen, for in winter 
this pretty bird lives as far south as the snow goes on the 
Scandinavian peninsula, and in summer betakes itself to the 
snow limit in Lapland, the tundra of North Siberia, or the 
coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. It there builds 
its carefully-constructed nest of grass, feathers and down, deep 
in a stone heap, preferably surrounded by a grassy plain. 
The air resounds with the twitter of the little gay warbler, 
which makes the deeper impression because it is the only 
true bird’s song one hears in the highest northd 
On Spitzbergen there is sometimes to be met with in the 
interior of the country, on the mountain slopes, a game bird, 
sijetshergsripan, the rock ptarmigan (Lago'pus hyperhoreus, 
Sund.). A nearly allied type occurs on the Taimur peninsula, 
^ There are, however, various other song-birds found already on south 
Novaya Zemlya, for instance, lajjpsparfven^ the Lapland huntmg {Emberim 
lagponica, L.), and herglaerlcan, the shore-lark {Alauda alpestris, L.). They 
hatch on the ground under bushes, tufts of grass, or stones, in very care¬ 
fully constructed nests lined with cotton-grass and feathers, and are not 
uncommon. 
K 
