REED-BUNTING. 25 



to which this species has resort to distract the attention of 

 man from its progeny. The most common of these is the 

 feigning of lameness by the mother-bird, who with trailing 

 wing or leg, as if disabled, will shuffle through the herbage 

 for a considerable distance ; but at times the cock will also 

 enter into the wiles of his mate, and both parents will dis- 

 play an extraordinary amount of solicitude in regard to a 

 spot which does not harbour the young with the consequence 

 of misleading the intruder, if at all wanting in experience, 

 from the place where they lie. The food of the Reed- 

 Bunting is grain, seeds (chiefly those of grasses) and insects 

 — on the larva? of which last the young are especially fed — 

 with small freshwater crustaceans and mollusks, and its 

 stomach usually contains much fine gravel. 



By some of the older naturalists the song and the nest of 

 the Reed- Wren and Sedge-bird already described (vol. i. pages 

 369 and 376) have been attributed to the Reed-Sparrow, and 

 perhaps there may yet be writers so ill-informed as to con- 

 tinue the mistake. The hurried, varied and chattering notes 

 of both those Warblers can never be for a moment confounded 

 with the simple strain of this Bunting by any one who has 

 heard the latter, and in like manner though its nest be occa- 

 sionally composed of the same materials as that of the Reed- 

 Wren, before figured in this work {torn. clt. page 375), the 

 one can always be known by its smaller size and neater 

 workmanship, and by its being wholly suspended between 

 the reed-stems, while the other even when attached to the 

 stems seems to be always supported from beneath. 



The Reed-Bunting breeds in suitable localities almost 

 everywhere throughout the British Islands, Shetland being 

 the principal exception, since there, according to Saxby, only 

 three examples have been observed, but these arrived in the 

 earlier half of the year. Baikie and Heddle state that it has 

 bred in Orkney, and Mr. Gray says that it does so in most 

 of the Outer Hebrides, indeed, according to information 

 communicated by Capt. Powlett-Orde, it is very common in 

 North Uist. In Scotland generally its numbers seem to 

 receive a large increase in winter, and probably the same is 



VOL. II. E 



