THE BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 385 



The report of the gun interrupted the song; and in a few 

 moments the fallen bird, warm, and quivering with the 

 last throes of life, was in my hand. "How cruel!" many 

 would exclaim. "Yes," from one point of view; but most 

 emphatically, "no," from another. True, every life which 

 God has ordered is precious, and "not a Sparrow falleth to 

 the ground without Him;" but is not the bird or beast of 

 prey, by the law of its nature, under necessity of subsisting 

 on innocent lives ? And has not my thirst for knowledge 

 greater claim than the craw of a Hawk? Besides, as Dr. 

 Brehm has well said, to die in the midst of one's song is a 

 death which even a poet might crave. 



But to my bird. He is a beauty. With a peculiarly 

 thick, but not unsightly, bill, he is rather long and slender 

 for a Sparrow. About 6.50 long; forehead, greenish-olive; 

 nape and neck, bluish-ash; eye-brows and moustache, yel- 

 low, continuing for some distance in white lines; chin, 

 white; throat, black; breast, yellow; upper parts after the 

 manner of the Sparrows, with a bright patch of chestnut- 

 red on the shoulder; under parts, dull-white. This is the 

 coloring of the male. The female lacks the black throat, 

 the bright red patch on the shoulder, and has a mere tinge 

 of the yellow parts; she has, moreover, a noticeably narrow, 

 dark streak of about half an inch at the lower corners of 

 the mandible, and narrow broken streaks of brown on the 

 breast. 



If I am not mistaken, the female has a song — one differ- 

 ent from that of the male, though I cannot now describe it. 

 One afternoon, as a friend and I were ransacking a field oc- 

 cupied by these birds, in search of their nests, we noticed 

 a female, singing in a bush. My comrade was a good marks- 

 man, and took deliberate aim, and, as we thought, the bird 

 dropped. After searching the spot thoroughly, however. 



