T he Lapland B unting, though a native, as its name
imports, of the most northern parts of Europe, a,nd even of
the Arctic Regions, has yet been taken on four different
occasions in this country. The first was obtained in the London
market, and was for some years in the possession of N. A.
Vigors, Esq. M.P. passing afterwards,with hiswhole collection,
by gift, to the Museum of the Zoological Society. The second
was taken on the downs near Brighton, and is in my own
collection. The third was taken a few miles north of London,
and its capture made known by Mr. Gould. The
fourth, caught near Preston in Lancashire, was selected from
among a variety of other small birds in Manchester market,
and is now preserved in the Manchester Museum. Each of
these four examples exhibited the plumage of the least conspicuous
bird in the back ground of the plate here given.
Systematic writers in ornithology at the present day appear
to agree that the natural situation of the species of the genus
Plectrophanes of Meyer, is between the true Larks and the
true Buntings: with several characters by which they are
allied to the Buntings, the difference in the structure of the
wing, their straight hind claw, their terrestrial habits, and
their mode of progression on the ground by steps, and not
by hopping, indicate their connexion with the Larks, in the
nets with which all the four examples here recorded were
caught in this country. M. Temminck, it will be observed
by the quotation at the head of this article, has not adopted
the genus Plectrophanes of Meyer, but has made two sections
of the Buntings, Emberiza, the second of which contains the
species ranged by others in the new genus Plectrophanes.
Pennant, in his Arctic Zoology, says the Lapland Bunting
is found in Siberia, and near the Uralian chain. Towards
winter a few migrate southward as far as Switzerland. M.
Necker in his paper in the Transactions of the Natural History
Society of Geneva, mentions that this bird had been
taken occasionally with Larks in that vicinity.
LAPLAND BUNTING. 423
M. Nilsson includes this bird in his Fauna of Scandinavia.
It inhabits the Faroe Islands, Spitzbergen, Greenland, and
Iceland in summer, and from thence westward to Hudson s
Bay. Some stragglers are occasionally seen in the northern
parts of the United States. Dr. Richardson, in the second
volume of the Fauna Boreali Americana, says, “ I never met
this species in the interior of the fur-countries during winter,
and I suspect that its principal retreats in that season are on
the borders of lakes Huron and Superior, and to the country
extending to the westward on the same parallel. In the year
1827 it appeared on the plains at Carlton House, about the
middle of May, in very large flocks, amongst which were
many Shore Larks, Alauda alpestris, and a few individuals of
Plectrophanes picta. During their stay of ten or twelve
days they frequented open spots, where recent fires had destroyed
the grass. They came to Cumberland House a few
days later in the same season, and there kept constantly in
the furrows of a newly ploughed field. In the preceding
year they were seen, though in smaller flocks, in the vicinity
of Fort Franklin, latitude 65-1-0, in the beginning of May ;
and the crops of those that were then killed were filled with
the seeds of Arbutus alpina. They breed in moist meadows
on the shores of the Arctic sea. The nest, placed on a small
hillock, among moss and stones, is composed externally of
the dry stems of grass, interwoven to a considerable thickness,
and lined very neatly and compactly with deer’s hair.
The eggs, usually seven, are pale ochre-yellow, spotted with
brown.” Captain James Ross, in the Appendix quoted in
the history of the Shore Lark, says, the Lapland Bunting
was “ by no means numerous in the higher northern latitudes.
A nest with five eggs was brought on board early in
July 1830.”
The adult male in spring and summer has the beak yellow,
with the point black ; irides hazel; the lore, or space between
m