448 EMBERIZA CITRINELLA. 



approaches, often mingle with Chaffinches, Green Linnets, 

 Sparrows, and other species, in open weather resorting to the 

 fields, and perching at intervals in the hedges and bushes, as 

 well as on trees. When the ground is covered with snow, 

 they congregate about houses, and frequent corn-yards, along 

 with other birds, retiring to the trees and hedges in the vicinity 

 when alarmed. Their flight is undulated, light, strong, and 

 graceful, and they alight abruptly, jerking out their ^tail-fea- 

 thers. It is indeed surprising to see w^ith w^hat velocity they 

 descend at once from a considerable height to settle on the 

 twigs of a tree which has attracted their notice as they were 

 flying over it, and with what dexterity all the individuals of a 

 flock perch in their selected places. 



During winter they utter a kind of rather harsh low chirp ; 

 but in spring and summer the male chants a doleful sort of ditty, 

 somewhat more musical than that of the Corn Bunting, but 

 similar in character, being composed of a few short shrill notes 

 concluding with a protracted one. Their food consists of seeds 

 of the cereal plants, especially oats, grasses, chickweeds, poly- 

 gona and others. In hard weather they may often be seen on 

 the roads picking horse dung, and in summer they also eat 

 insects and larvse. 



Towards the beginning of April the winter associations 

 break up, and they choose their partners without the mani- 

 festation of angry feelings, they being less addicted to quarrel- 

 ling than most small birds. AYhen vegetation has advanced, 

 they repair to bushy places, and the willowy sides of brooks 

 and streams, and commence the construction of their nests, 

 which are bulky, composed externally of coarse grasses and 

 small twigs, and neatly lined with fine grass, fibrous roots, and 

 hair. The nest is usually placed on the ground, under a bush, 

 or among the twigs close to the ground, or sometimes in a 

 clump of thick grass or herbage. The eggs, four or five in 

 number, are of a regular oval form, purplish white, marked 

 with linear and angular streaks, and a few irregular dots of 

 black, their length about ten-twelfths, their greatest transverse 

 diameter eight twelfths of an inch. 



These Buntings evince much anxiety about their charge, 



