Excerpt from A History of British Birds, Vol. 2 Tarsus scutellate in front, covered at the sides with an undivided plate, forming a sharp ridge behind, about as long as the middle toe. Claws but slightly curved, that of the hind toe elongated. Whatever differences of opinion once existed, it has long since been ascertained that the Mountain -, the Tawny and the Snow-Bunting of old authors, are only names for one and the same species in different states of plumage; but to whom belongs the credit of establishing this fact beyond dispute is by no means clear. Linnaeus indeed never faltered in his opinion of their identity, though Pennant and, after him, Latham for some time, took the contrary view. Turton, in 1807, was perhaps the first British naturalist who united the three supposed species into one. This was also done on the continent by Wolf in 1810, by Temminck in 1815 and by Koch in 1816; but both at home and abroad they were regarded as distinct by others, and Montagu maintained to the last the separation of Emberiza montana, though allowing that E. mustelina and E. nivalis might be specifically identified, on the evidence apparently of his friend Foljambe, an excellent practical ornithologist, - who in a letter to him said "a few years ago, I shot more than forty from the same flock, during severe weather in the month of January, hardly any two of which exhibited precisely the same plumage, but varied from the perfect Tawny to the Snow-Bunting in its whitest state; the feathers of those of the intermediate state being more or less charged with white." The Snow-Bunting or Snow-flake is generally considered only a winter-visitor to this country, and to the other temperate parts of Europe; large flocks, consisting chiefly of the young birds of the year, bred in high northern latitudes, annually visiting our islands in autumn. But there is little doubt that some pairs breed every summer in the Highlands of Scotland, while the nest and eggs have been several times found in Unst the most northerly of the Shetlands. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."