28 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF 



of May or the first week in June, according to the state 

 of the season. If it does not actually migrate in pairs 

 it soon mates after its arrival in its summer haunts. 

 The males are persistent singers, as is usual in this group 

 of birds. The favourite breeding haunts of the Little 

 Bunting are the small pine and fir woods intermixed 

 with birches and alders, and where the undergrowth is 

 fairly dense. Although Schrenck took the nest of this 

 Buntine on the Lower Amoor, and Middendorff obtained 

 others on the banks of the Boganida, these naturalists 

 do not give many details of their discovery, and by far 

 the best account of the nidification of th's species is that 

 written by Mr. Seebohm, who has added so much to our 

 information of the habits of birds in the Arctic regions, 

 and v/hose discoveries, made both by himself and when 

 accompanied by Mr. Harvie-Brown, are tolerably well 

 known to most ornithologists. He found the Little 

 Bunting very common in Siberia, in the valley of the 

 Yenesay, and discovered the first nest on the 23rd of 

 June ; and between that date and the 6th of July suc- 

 ceeded in taking three others. They were made on the 

 ground amongst the grass and moss and fallen leaves, 

 and were hollows amongst the dead leaves, moss and 

 grass lined with dry grass, and in two instances reindeer 

 hair. The nest found by Schrenck was also on the 

 mossy ground, and made of dry grass and the needle-like 

 leaves of the fir. The sitting bird is described as being 

 remarkably tame when flushed from the eggs. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Little Bunting are from four to six in 

 number. Those that I have examined vary in ground 

 colour from pale grayish-olive to pale reddish-brown, 

 spotted and blotched with dark olive-brown, and with 

 underlying markings of paler brown. The larger mark- 

 i:igs are irregular in shape, but many of the smaller ones 



