DICKCISSEL. 299 



rarely display any hostility to the birds around them, or 

 amongst each other. In August they become mute, and about 

 the beginning of September depart for the South, wintering as 

 well as breeding in Texas and other parts of Mexico, but are 

 not seen in the Southern States at any period of the winter. 

 Their food consists of seeds, eggs of insects, and gravel, and in 

 the early part of summer they subsist much upon caterpillars 

 and small coleopterous insects ; they are also among the many 

 usual destroyers of the ruinous cankerworm. 



This species is now restricted chiefly to the valley of the Mis- 

 sissippi, though it occurs sparingly in southern New England, but 

 is merely accidental farther to the northward. The only examples 

 that have been met with in Canada were the few that Mr. William 

 E. Saunders found breeding at Point Pelee in southern Ontario. 



Mr. William Brewster, writing of this species, says: " It is now 

 unquestionably one of the rarest species known to breed within 

 this region (New England). Moreover, within the past two de- 

 cades it has practically disappeared from the Middle States, where 

 it was formerly abundant, and at many localities west of the Alle- 

 ghanies and east of the Mississippi its numbers have diminished 

 steadily and more or less rapidly." 



Note. — Towxsend's Bunting {Spisa townsendii) was placed 

 on the " Hypothetical List " by the A. O. U. Committee. The type 

 specimen taken by Mr. Townsend in Pennsylvania remains unique. 



The Lark Bunting {Calainospiza /nelanocorys) has been seen 

 in Massachusetts and Long Island, — the only instances of its oc 

 currence east of the Great Plains. 



