LITTLE BUNTING. 35 



others. A hen-bird is recorded by Prof. Nilsson as having 

 been shot near Lund in April, 1815, but there is no men- 

 tion of the subsequent occurrence of the species in Sweden, 

 nor of its appearance in Finland, Norway, or Denmark. Yet 

 in Heligoland Mr. Gatke meets with one or two examples 

 in September or October of almost every year, and, accord- 

 ing to Prof. Schlegel, a hen was taken near Leyden, 18th 

 November, 1842. Mr. Keulemans has informed the writer 

 of three other examples in Holland :— the first was bought at 

 Rotterdam in September 1862, and, after living about three 

 months in confinement, is now in the Museum of Leyden : 

 the second was caught by Mr. Keulemans himself in October 

 1862, and the third was found by him in a cage, but the 

 owner refused to part with it. In the autumn of 1874, Mr. 

 Labouchere caught another near Harlem. Still in Germany 

 it is only reported from East Prussia, and it has not been 

 observed in Belgium or Northern France. In the South, how- 

 ever, of the country last named it is said by M. Jaubert to be 

 the commonest of the rarer Buntings which annually con- 

 gregate about Marseilles, and several examples have been 

 taken in Northern Italy, where they seem for some time 

 to have passed under the name of E. durazzii, which is 

 now generally though not universally regarded as a synonym 

 of E. pusilla. A pair were obtained near Vienna in 1850 

 by Herr Zelebor and are preserved in the Museum there. 

 It is included by Messrs. Elwes and Buckley as a rather 

 rare winter-visitor on the Bosphorus. Writers on European 

 ornithology were slow to admit this species to a place in 

 their works, and it was not until Prof. Schlegel had recorded 

 its occurrence in Holland, as above stated, that it was 

 recognized as a denizen of this quarter of the globe, yet it 

 has been found to be not unfrequent by all observers of 

 birds who have visited the north of Eussia — Prof. Lillje- 

 borg, Herr Meves and Messrs. Alston, Harvie Brown and 

 Seebohm. Near Archangel, say the two first of our 

 countrymen, it is " a very common species, but apparently 

 somewhat locally distributed. It frequents both pine-woods 

 of large growth and thickets of underwood, but seems to 



