1682 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



by a number of alert and competent naturalists, they must be regarded 

 merely as stragglers that wandered or perhaps were blown east of 

 their normal route during migration. 



* Spring. — The rustic buntings evidently begin to leave their winter- 

 ing grounds in March. They usually travel in small flocks, and the 

 males are sometimes heard singing during migration. They generally 

 reach their northern nesting grounds between late April and late 

 May. The first migrants often appear in Finland while the ground 

 is still snow covered, and are ready to start nesting immediately after 

 the spring thaw. 



Their preferred breeding habitat is marshy, ragged, mixed forest 

 with plenty of beard lichen (Usnea) and undergrowth. Often they 

 inhabit the fringes of muskeg-type bogs and the thickets bordering 

 streams. Trees characteristic of their habitat in Finland include 

 spruce, birch, alder, and willows. In the Okhostk area according to 

 Portenko et al. (.1954) they also nest in stands of fir, and may be 

 found in the mountains up to 1,800 feet. 



Nesting. — Soon after their arrival the males settle down, select 

 their territories, and begin to sing actively. The nest is built on or 

 near the ground, sometimes in the thick moss carpet or in a grass 

 tussock usually hidden under a small shrub, sometimes slightly above 

 it in a bush or stump. Of 26 nests found by Lars von Haartman 

 (MS.), 20 were on the ground, 5 were from one to three feet above it, 

 and 1 was in a stump almost six feet from the ground. 



The nest is made largely of grasses or sedges with bits of moss added 

 occasionally. It may be lined with finer dry grasses, and in Finland 

 often with animal hair of reindeer, moose, or snowshoe hare. Eight 

 nests that E. S. Nyholm (in litt.) measured varied from 10 to 12 cm. 

 in outside diameter, from 6.5 to 8.5 cm. in outside depth, from 5 to 6 

 cm. in inside diameter, and from 4.5 to 5.5 cm. in inside depth. 



Eggs.— The clutch usually contains four or five, less often six eggs. 

 Of 40 clutches Haartman (MS.) reports, there were 10 with four 

 eggs, 22 with five, and 8 with six. Witherby et al. (1938) describe the 

 eggs as "ground-colour greenish-grey to bluish-green, spotted and 

 blotched thickly with greyish-olive and violet shell-marks, but no 

 streaks. Average of 64 eggs * * * 20.16X15.1. Max.: 21.8X15.2 

 and 20.7X15.7. Min.: 18X14.5 and 17.6X14 mm." Most striking 

 is the rustic bunting's eggs' lack of the wreath of hair lines that is so 

 characteristic of the eggs of most other Emberiza species. 



Haartman's (MS.) data show nests with eggs found in Finland 

 from May 11 to July 10, with the main la3ung period the last week of 

 May and the first week of June. Few data are available for the far 

 east populations. According to the Russian handbooks, breeding usually 

 takes place from late May to early July, but fledglings have been seen 

 as late as August. 



