AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 175 



76. YELLOW BUNTING or YELLOW HAMMER. 



Emheriza citrinella. 



The Yellow Hammer is very common with us, and 

 though not, I think, now so abundant as it was some 

 thirty years ago, is a well-known and conspicuous 

 bird, especially from its great partiality for the neigh- 

 bourhood of roads and footpaths. The notes of the 

 male Yellow Hammer, though monotonous, are, in 

 our opinion, more pleasing than those of the Reed- 

 Bunting, and a great improvement upon the wearying 

 noise made by the species last described. This bird 

 sings in fine weather almost throughout the year, 

 and never more cheerily than on a bright frosty 

 morning in mid-winter. The Yellow Hammer is, 

 I think, the most insectivorous of our three com- 

 monest Buntings, but, when suitable insects are not 

 to be found, feeds on various seeds, and flocks with 

 other birds in winter at the corn-ricks. The nest is 

 usually placed upon, or close to, the ground in a 

 rough hedge-bottom or shrub-grown bank, but I have 

 once or twice met with it in a bush at the height of 

 a foot or two from the ground, and Yarrell quotes an 

 instance in which a nest was found at an elevation 

 of seven feet among the branches of a broom-plant. 

 Both nests and eggs are too well known to require 

 any description. The species is pretty common, 

 though very local, in certain parts of the northern 

 provinces of Spain in the summer months, but in 

 Andalucia seems to be a rare winter visitor. 



