YELLOW HAMMER. 11 



immediate neighbourhood, this is most difficult to find. The 

 centre of a large field is a favourite site, and it may be built on 

 the ground in long herbage or be sheltered by a clod of earth 

 or low bush. Grass, straw and moss, rather untidily put together, 

 form the outer structure ; hair is the usual lining. The four 

 to six eggs are seldom laid before the end of May; they are of 

 the usual Bunting type, dull white, tinged purple or reddish, and 

 scored with irregular lines with a few blotches of deep red or 

 purple (Plate 41) ; they are subject to great variation in shade 

 and markings. 



The summer dress of both sexes is hair-brown streaked with 

 dark brown on the head, back and breast. The eye-stripe, chin 

 and throat are paler, and the coverts have pale edgings, as also 

 have the feathers of wings and tail. A streak or moustachial 

 stripe runs obliquely downwards from the base of the bill. The 

 bill is brown above and yellow below ; the legs are pale brown 

 with a fleshy tinge ; the irides are hazel. The colour is browner 

 above and slightly redder beneath after the autumn moult, and 

 the young have more and deeper spots on the upper parts, and 

 are buffer in tone Length, 7 ins. Wing, 3*9 ins. Tarsus, i in. 



Yellow Hammer. Emberiza citrinella Linn. 



The Yellow Hammer, Yellow Ammer or Yellow Bunting 

 (Plate 33), breeds throughout Europe except in the extreme 

 north and south. With us it is a common and well-distributed 

 resident, and as migrants reach us in autumn and return in 

 spring, a winter visitor. Our own birds, flocking in winter, are 

 irregular local migrants. 



Though less restricted in its haunts than the Corn-Bunting, it 

 is a bird of the open country, little attracted by woodlands. It 

 is best known as a hedgerow bird ; the top of a hedge is used 

 more often than a tree for a song platform. From this or some 

 other elevated perch the male utters his popular song — a single 



