270 EMBERIZIN &. 
THE STRIOLATED BUNTING. 
Length, 5°5 to 5-97 ; expanse, 9 to 9°75; wing, 2'87 to 3:1; tail, 
2°2 to 2°75 ; bill at front, 0°35 to 0°39. 
Bill, upper mandible brown to blackish-brown, lower waxy, 
fleshy or dingy-yellow; irides brown; legs pale waxy, dingy or 
fleshy-yellow, the feet more or less tinged brownish. 
The male has the forehead, top of the head, and nape grey- 
ish-white, grey or white in different specimens, each feather 
with a conspicuous linear, median, black streak; a narrow pure 
white superciliary stripe starting from the base of the bill and 
extending behind the eye over the ear-coverts; the lores, and 
a moderately broad stripe directly behind the eye (and immedi- 
ately under the white stripe), involving the upper portions of 
the ear-coverts ; below this, starting from the base of the lower 
mandible, a black stripe; below this, from the angle of the 
lower mandible, a greyish-white stripe, which again is divided 
from the greyish-white of the chin by a narrow inconspicuous 
dark streak. 
“In the fresh bird in breeding plumage, which I am describ- 
ing, ail these streaks and stripes are as clearly and sharply 
defined as if painted; but at other seasons, and in stuffed speci- 
mens, they are not so clear; the whole of the back, scapulars, 
and tertials are hair-brown, the former two very broadly, the 
latter more narrowly, margined with pale, more or less sandy or 
even rufous brown; in many specimens the darker median streaks 
of the back feathers are reduced to mere lines, and in some the 
rufous tinge on the upper back is well marked; the primaries and 
secondaries and their coverts are a mixture of hair-brown and 
rich rufous (recalling in color the wings of Mirafra erythroptera), 
the extent of each varying in different specimens, but the brown 
predominating in the earlier primaries and everywhere at the 
tips, and decreasing in extent in the hinder part of the wing and 
towards the bases of the feathers; the second primary, for in- 
stance, will be all brown, except a narrow rufous edging for the 
basal two-thirds of the outer web and a broad rufous stripe on 
the margin of the inner web for the same distance, while one 
of the later secondaries will be all rufous except a narrow brown 
stripe running down the shaft till within one-third of the end 
of the feather, whence it gradually widens so as to occupy 
at the tip the whole of both webs; the rump and upper 
tail-coverts are much the same as the back, but in some speci- 
mens slightly more rufous than the lower back; and the longest 
of the coverts are in some specimens very narrowly tipped with 
very pale rufous-white; the tail is hair-brown, darker than 
the brown portion of the quills; all the feathers externally very 
narrowly margined with pale-rufous, except the external feather 
on each side which has the whole outer web of that color; the 
throat and upper breast are greyish white or grey, with more or 
less numerous and conspicuous black median stripes on the 
