24 EMBERIZID^. 



and the sides of running or stagnant waters where they are 

 bordered by alders, osiers, reeds or rushes ; and, though local 

 from its partiality to such situations, it is not a rare species in 

 this country, where it remains throughout the year, shifting its 

 haunt however to some extent according to the season, and 

 in hard weather not unfrequently joining the congregations 

 of other Buntings and Finches which assemble round corn- 

 stacks and in barn-yards, occasionally far away from water. 



The contrast of the black head of the cock-bird in spring or 

 summer with the white collar on the neck, and the varied 

 colours of the back, give it an agreeable appearance, and it is 

 accordingly a pretty general favourite. If suitable localities 

 are visited, the male during the breeding-season may be seen 

 perched on a conspicuous spray by the water- side, amusing 

 his mate and himself for an hour together with his song, 

 which consists of an interchange of two or three notes, the 

 first of which are short and the last of all long. This song, 

 repeated at brief intervals, has a family-likeness to that of 

 the allied species, but, apart from its seeming harmony with 

 the dreary spots the bird often frequents and enlivens, it must 

 be deemed wanting in melody, and when heard, as it may 

 also be, in a fertile valley amid the voices of other birds 

 sounds harshly and out of place. The nest is generally 

 built on the ground among long grass or rushes, at the foot 

 of a thorn or on the side of a bank, more rarely in a low 

 bush, elevated some few inches above the ground ; but 

 Jardine states that he has frequently found it on a young 

 spruce-ftr, at the height of from one to three yards. It con- 

 sists of coarse grass with a little moss, lined with finer grass 

 and hairs, or in places where reeds abound the feathery tops 

 of those plants often form the sole lining and the greater part 

 of the structure. The eggs are from four or five to seven 

 in number, of a pale purple-brown or clay-colour, spotted, 

 blotched and streaked with a darker purple-brown or black, 

 and measure from '83 to '7 by from '62 to "56 in. Incu- 

 bation often begins at the end of March, but a second nest 

 is generally made, and perhaps even a third brood is pro- 

 duced in July. Several observers have recorded the artifices 



