Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 338 
hidden in the grass and moss. It contained five eggs. The 
bird was still close to me; and I was obliged to leave the nest 
in order to get far enough from the bird, so as to avoid 
blowing it to pieces. It seemed a shame to shoot the poor 
little thing; but as the five eggs in the nest were the only 
authentic eggs of this species known to exist, it was abso- 
lutely necessary for their complete identification. The nest | 
was nothing but a hole made in the dead leaves, moss, and 
grass, copiously and carefully lined with fine dead grass. 
The eggs were very handsome, almost exact miniatures of 
the eggs of the Corn-Bunting. The ground-colour is pale 
grey, with bold twisted blotches and irregular round spots 
of very dark grey, and equally large underlying shell-markings 
of paler grey. They measure 2} x 23 of an inch. 
I took the second nest in the forest on the opposite bank 
of the Koo-ray’-i-ka on the 29th of June, contaming three 
eggs. These egg are somewhat less, measuring #§ x 24 of an 
inch. The colour is redder, being brown rather than grey, 
but the markings ere similar. The nest was in a similar 
position, and the behaviour of the bird precisely the same. 
The third nest I took in lat. 67°, on the 30th of June. The 
eges, five in number, were slightly incubated. The markings 
are similar to those of the eggs in the two preceding nests ; 
but the ground-colour is browner, being less olive than in the 
_ first nest, and less red than in the second. The nest was’ 
lined with reindeer-hair. The fourth nest contained six eggs, 
and was taken a few miles to the north of the preceding, on 
the 6th of July. The eggs are intermediate in colour between 
those of the two nests last described. The character of the 
nest was similar to the last, but more sparingly lined with 
reindeer-hair. The tameness of the bird was the same in 
every instance. 
The Little Bunting was common in the forest from the 
Arctic circle northwards, and afterwards on the tundra up to 
lat. 71°; but I did not observe it at Gol-cheek’-a, in lat. 714°, 
nor upon the Brek’-off-sky islands. There are skins of this 
bird in the St.-Petersburg Museum, collected by Baron May- 
dell in the Tschuski Land. 
[29] 
