THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



SOME NEW SCOTTISH AND BRITISH BIRDS. 



On the occurrence of the Pine Bunting, Thrush 

 Nightingale, and Baird's Sandpiper in Scotland. 



By Wm. Eagle Clarke. 



Pine Bunting {Emberiza leucocephala) at Fair Isle. — On 

 the 30th of October last, Mr Wilson, the bird-watcher at 

 Fair Isle, found this bird among a rush of migrants, and 

 knowing that it was a stranger, secured it and sent it to me 

 for identification. It is a male in full winter plumage, in 

 which stage the brilliant chestnut on the head, throat, and 

 neck are masked by the white tips to their feathers. In 

 spring these tips are shed, and reveal the bird as one of the 

 handsomest of Buntings. 



The Pine Bunting is a native of Siberia, from the Ural 

 to the Amoor, and winters in North China, Mongolia, 

 Turkestan, and the Himalayas. It is only a straggler to 

 Europe — Austria, Turkey, Italy, the south of France — and 

 has once occurred at Heligoland, namely, on the 16th of 

 April 1 88 1. It has never before been known to have visited 

 the British Isles. 



In its native haunts it is found on the borders of pine 

 woods and bush-covered country and fields. Its nesting 

 habits and eggs are similar to those of our familiar Yellow 

 Bunting, which it also resembles in coloration of its mantle, 

 lower back and upper tail coverts. 



The Scottish specimen has the crown and nape whitish 

 and much streaked with grey ; mantle and scapulars a mixture 

 of greyish buff and rufous streaked with black, especially on 

 the middle of the back ; lower back and upper tail coverts 

 rufous, the latter edged with white ; primaries blackish, 

 narrowly edged with white ; secondaries and wing coverts 

 with black centres, rufous bands, and white fringes ; lores, 

 band over eyes to side of neck, — cheeks, throat, and chest 

 chestnut margined with white, which more or less conceals the 

 rich underlying tint ; ear coverts dusky, with a central band 



