2IO LITTLE BUNTING. 



in the valley of the Yenesei from June ist onwards, before the snow 

 had sufficiently melted to make the forest penetrable, discovered the 

 first nest on the 23rd of that month. He was scrambling amongst 

 the tangled underwood and fallen tree-trunks on the south bank of 

 the Kuraika, a tributary of the Yenesei, when a Little Bunting started 

 from the grass at his feet and flitted from branch to branch at a 

 short distance. He soon found the nest, which was nothing but 

 a hole made in the dead leaves, moss and grass, carefully lined with 

 fine dry bents, and containing 5 eggs; two other nests afterwards 

 obtained were lined with reindeer-hair, and contained respectively 

 5 and 6. Those of the first clutch are described as almost exact 

 miniatures of Corn-Bunting's eggs ; being of a pale grey ground- 

 colour, with bold twisted blotches and irregular spots of very dark 

 grey, and equally large underlying shell-markings of paler grey ; the 

 others were redder or browner in ground-colour : average measure- 

 ments •63 by "56 in. In every instance the bird was remarkably 

 tame ; though in winter Mr. Davison found it excessively wild in 

 Tenasserim, when in flocks ; in summer it appears to be partial to 

 the younger woods composed of a mixture of pines, firs, alders and 

 birches. All travellers, who have had the opportunity of observing 

 it, describe its song as low and sweet, more like that of a Warbler 

 than of a Bunting, while the call-note resembles the words tick, 

 tick, tick. The food consists of insects in summer and of seeds in 

 winter. 



The adult male in breeding-plumage has the crown and sides of the 

 head chestnut, with a broad black stripe from above each eye to the 

 nape, behind which is a dull whitish collar; mantle and rump reddish- 

 brown with blackish streaks ; wing-coverts brown, tipped with bufifish- 

 white ; quills ash-brown ; tail-feathers the same, with longitudinal 

 white patches on the two outer pairs ; chin and throat pale chestnut ; 

 upper breast and flanks white, thickly streaked with black ; belly 

 white ; bill horn-brown ; legs pale brown. Length 5 in. ; wing 

 275 in. In the female the black on the head is duller, and the 

 chestnut paler. In the young bird the central stripe on the crown 

 is buff, and the two side stripes are reddish-brown with dark streaks ; 

 the secondaries are broadly edged with rufous-brown, and the under 

 parts are more streaked and mottled with black. 



