of the Lapland Bunting from that of any other bird frequenting
the locality, and therefore deserves especial mention,
since the eggs, from five to seven in number, not
uncommonly so closely resemble those of the Bed-throated j
Pipit (Antlius cervinus), Titlark and even the Keed-Bunting
(which occasionally finds its way to the breeding-haunts of
the present species) that they cannot always be picked out.
They measure from ‘87 to '78 by from *61 to ‘55 in., and
have a clay-coloured or pale greyish-chocolate ground, suffused
with darker reddish-brown, on which are seen spots,
blotches and curved lines of a darker shade of the same
tint, in many places distinct, hut the larger markings generally
with blurred edges.
When the young have left the nest they accompany their
parents for some time, and the family-parties unite towards
the end of the summer, hut it does not appear that this
species ever forms very vast congregations—indeed it is
hardly anywhere sufficiently numerous to do so, being
generally a local bird. In Europe its breeding-range
seems not to extend further southward than lat. 62° N., and
that only in the mountain-districts of Norway, while in
Sweden, Finland and Russia its summer-limit, though from
want of information not to he determined, must lie much
more towards the north. In Asia also it cannot be said to
he known to breed outside of the Arctic Circle, hut in
Eastern Siberia it is apparently more abundant than elsewhere
in the Old World, since in autumn Mr. Swinhoe
found it in the market at Tientsin by thousands which had
doubtless been bred to the northward. In the New World
it breeds on the most western of the Aleutian and on the
Prybilov Islands, as well as in Alaska. The Hepburn
Collection in the Museum of the University of Cambridge
contains a specimen in full summer-plumage from
Fort Simpson in British Columbia, which is perhaps the
obtained by Mr. H. W. Elliott on the Prybilov Islands are said to have contained
feathers, and those from Greenland, of which the Editor has seen several,
are profusely lined with them. I t may here be mentioned that eggs of this I
bird from Greenland are on the average distinctly larger than those from
Lapland.
most southern locality known -for the species in America at
that season, though Mr. Trippe’s observations in Minnesota
induce him (Proc. Essex Inst. vi. pp. 118-119) to think
that it may breed in that State. Richardson states that it
breeds in moist meadows on the shores of the Arctie Sea,
and that is also the case along the west coast of Greenland,
while the German Expedition obtained it full summer
dress at Shannon Island on the east coast. Mr.
Dresser was informed by Herr Benzon that he had received
its eggs from Iceland, but the species must be rare in that
island if indeed there be more than the one unquestionable
instance of its occurrence, in 1821, as recorded by
Faber.
The line of this bird’s migration has been supposed to
lie a good deal to the eastward, for though, as already said,
it is in summer pretty widely distributed in Norway and
Lapland its occurrence at bther seasons has been but seldom
recorded in the western part of the continent of Europe.
This remark applies even to the lowlands of Central and
Southern Norway and Sweden, and it has only been observed
as an irregular autumnal visitor to Denmark, many districts
in Germany, Holland, Belgium and France. But on the
other hand this apparent rarity is most likely due to its
being overlooked in those countries, since Mr. Cordeaux, on
Mr. Gatke’s authority, says that in Heligoland it is so common
in autumn as not to be considered worth shooting. In
severe winters it has been met with much further to the
southward, even in the neighbourhood of Montpellier, as
well as in Piedmont and in Lombardy, but it does not seem
to reach Central Italy. Its occurrence near Geneva was
long ago recorded by Necker, and further eastward it has
been met with in the Vienna market and at Lemberg. In
Central and Southern Russia it is said to be very rare, but
about Moscow and Jaroslav a few are met with in spring
and autumn, but not every year. Across the Ural—which
chain of mountains it has from the time of Pennant been
known to frequent, while it has even been supposed to breed
near Ekaterineburg—it becomes more abundant, and, accord-r