114 I'"'"' Vkllow Bux'Pixg 



may also be often seen, though at times wheu it sits upon a flowering furze-bush 

 it is overlooked until its ringing song directs one's attention to the performer. 



The song of the Yellow Bunting is not especially meritorious, though bright 

 and cheering; it consists of a rapid descending scale made up of a repetition ni 

 a sharp note which may be rendered chip or cliink\ and terminating with a double 

 note cluc-chee : it rather suggests the shaking up of shillings between the hands, 

 and has been likened to the words "Give me a little bit of bread and no cheese," 

 though "green cheese" would have been a better interpretation: occasionally the 

 double note is omitted ; but more especially when the bird is beginning to sing 

 in the early spring. Being a late breeder this species continues his song well 

 into the autumn, and often recommences in February. The male call-note is 

 described as (Inch, cliicli, churr. 



The nidification of this bird commences about the middle of April, and not 

 unfrequently continues up to the end of August : I have myself taken a nest as 

 late as the 12th August with three fresh eggs (Vide "Zoologist" for December, 

 1883) and eggs have been obtained in September. 



Tlie nest is usually placed low dowm, though occasionally at a distance of from 

 four to five feet above the ground in a hedge, and (according to Howard Saunders) 

 exceptionally at a height of seven feet. I have often found it in low bushes, but 

 only once in furze ; in low scrub on partially cleared waste ground ; in holes in 

 grassy banks by the road-side ; or under a low dividing hedge between fields ; also 

 at a considerable height (from thirty to forty feet) in a niche in the side of a 

 gravel or chalk-pit surrounded by tufts of plantain and grass. The structure is a 

 loose one, occasionally so much so that, when taken, the outer walls have to be 

 supported to prevent their falling apart ; these consist of coarse straws, dead 

 grasses, and sometimes a few twigs interlaced ; and, in one nest which I took 

 from a hedge, there was an edging of dead chestnut leaves ; the lining consists of 

 fine withered grass-bents, and a few rootlets and horsehairs. 



The eggs of the Yellow Hammer are extremely variable, both in ground-tint 

 and marking, although most of them exhibit the purplish-black characters which 

 have earned for this bird the title of " Scribbling Lark." In tint they vary from 

 greenish-white, through greyish-lavender, to pale rosy-brownish ; whilst one o^g^, 

 taken by my brother Frank, in Cornwall, was bright sieuua-red, with a single 

 irregular blackish line across one side, and somewhat resembles a rare form of 

 the egg of the Tree-Pipit (Plate HI, fig. 100). On two occasions I have taken 

 the greenish-white egg almost or entirely without markings, the first time I only 

 secured the first egg (as I had to return to town the following day) on the second 

 occasion I obtained a clutch of three ; four elliptical eggs in one clutch were dull 



