200 CORN-BUNTING. 



Palestine, Asia Minor, Persia and Western Turkestan ; and in winter 

 as far south as Nubia, Arabia Petrsea, Bushire and Sind. In all 

 forest and mountain regions it is practically unknown. 



The Corn-Bunting is a late breeder, and in this country it is use- 

 less to search for its eggs before the latter part of May. The nest 

 may sometimes be found in rough herbage, or at the foot of a low 

 shrub, but it is generally placed well towards the middle of a field 

 of clover or pease, or under a clod among young corn ; and some 

 umbelliferous plant, sufficiently strong to afford a perch for the bird, 

 will probably be at no great distance from it. Straw, a little moss, 

 roots and dry grass, with hair for a lining, are the materials em- 

 ployed to form the somewhat loose structure ; the eggs, 4-5 in 

 number, are of a dull purplish-white, or sometimes of an ochreous 

 ground-colour, blotched and streaked with dark purple-brown : 

 average measurements '98 in. by 7 in. The hen sits closely, whilst 

 the male utters his harsh and monotonous tic-tic-teese on a perch, 

 which varies in elevation from the top of some tall tree or a hedge- 

 row to a clod in the fallows. The flight is heavy and laboured, the 

 legs of the bird hanging down at first, as if broken. The young 

 are fed on insects ; the adults have been seen to eat cockchafers, 

 and they undoubtedly devour numbers of small beetles ; but in 

 autumn and winter grain is largely consumed, and the birds become 

 so fat that, in the south of Europe, they are much in request for 

 the table. Many are taken in nets, together with Larks, owing to 

 their habit of roosting on the ground, and Mr. Booth says that 

 near Shoreham numbers resort in the evening to the beds of marine 

 weeds which grow on the mud-flats above high-water mark. 



Adult male : lores, and a line above and behind the eye buffish- 

 white ; ear-patches, head, neck, mantle and upper tail-coverts pale 

 hair-brown, streaked with darker brown down the middle of each 

 feather ; wing-coverts dark brown with buff margins ; quills dusky- 

 brown ; tail rather lighter brown with pale margins ; throat bufiish- 

 white, with brown spots at the side which form a moustache-like streak ; 

 remaining under parts buffish-white, freely spotted on the breast and 

 streaked on the flanks with brown ; bill yellowish-brown, with a dark 

 stripe along the ridge of the upper mandible ; legs pale flesh-colour. 

 Length 7 in. ; wing 3-6 in. The sexes are alike in plumage. The 

 young bird is darker, with broad fulvous margins to the wing-coverts 

 and secondaries, and the under parts are tinged with buff. Some 

 Continental specimens — especially those from the east — are very pale 

 in colour ; while albinistic varieties are not uncommon. 



