COBN-BUNTING 147 



motions. The present species is the heaviest and most sedentary of 

 aU, and on this account, and also on account of its dull plumage, 

 and because its voice is not melodious, it has been usually described 

 in somewhat depreciatory terms. Yarrell speaks of its droning, 

 harsh, immusical song ; and Warde Fowler thus describes it in his 

 dehghtful book, * A Year with the Birds ' : ♦ Look at the common 

 com-bimting, as he sits on the wires or the hedge-top : he is lumpy, 

 loose-feathered, spiritless, and flies off with his legs hanging down, 

 and without a trace of agility or vivacity ; he is a dull bird, and 

 seems to know it. Even his voice is half-hearted, and reminds me 

 often of an old man in our village who used to tell us that he had 

 a wheezing in his pipes.' This is a pretty description; but it 

 makes the homely bunting a little too homely, and the critical 

 remarks on its singing are not quite satisfactory : the song is not 

 droning, and not half-hearted. Heard at intervals in the open, sunny 

 fields and pasture -lands, it sons^ehow has a pleasant effect. It is a 

 pecuHar sound, not easily describable. The song begins with two or 

 three vigorous and musical chirps, then all at once the bird seems 

 to lose himself as a musician, and throws out all that remains of 

 his song in a burst of confused sound. In character it is some- 

 what like the sharp note of alarm, or excitement of some kind, 

 often uttered in spring by the skylark as he flies low above the field, 

 but id sharper and more prolonged. Eobert Gray wrote : * It puts 

 you in mind of the jingling of a chain or the sound of breaking 

 glass.' It is certainly like breaking glass. You can imitate it by 

 tightly pressing a handful of polished pebbles together, which pro- 

 duce, as they slide over each other, a variety of sharp and scraping 

 sounds. It is a peculiarity of the song that it is like several sounds 

 emitted simultaneously, as of a note broken up into splinters, or 

 issuing from a bundle of minute windpipes instead of out of one of 

 larger size. 



Of aU the birds that remain with us throughout the year, the 

 bunting is the latest to breed, the nest being usually built in May. 

 It is placed among grass and herbage close to the ground, and 

 formed of dry grass and fibrous roots, lined with horsehair and fine 

 fibres. Four to six eggs are laid, duU purplish white or pale yellow- 

 ish in ground-colour, blotched and streaked with dark brown, with 

 some patches of a dull lavender hue. 



The bunting feeds on seeds and grain and insects. In autumn 

 it becomes gregarious, and visits the stubbles and rickyards, where 

 it is seen associating with sparrows, greenfinches, and chaffinches. 



