/// Farm and Garden. 1 7 1 



cliffe, quite close to grimy Sheffield, but unfortunately 

 they were sadly reduced in numbers by local gunners 

 during the winter of their stay. The Reed Bunting 

 also visits the farm during this season, and we have 

 froni time to time detected them amongst the ricks 

 with Sparrows and other hard-billed birds in severe 

 weather. The Yellow Bunting, however, is the one 

 familiar Bunting of the farm in most parts of York- 

 shire and Derbyshire. It is one of our showiest 

 native birds, and, as is usually the case, what it gains 

 in colour it loses in melody. There are few bird- 

 songs of the field and hedgerows more monotonous 

 than that of the " Yoldring", as the Yorkshire lads 

 call him, and yet the oft-repeated refrain has a genuine 

 ring of spring about it. This song usually commences 

 about the beginning of March in the north of Eng- 

 land, but in the southern counties it is not unfrequent 

 in February, another instance of climatic influence. 

 We all of us know the yellow-crowned musician, 

 sitting on the top of the hedge or in some wayside 

 tree, trilling his simple lay ; we most of us know his 

 rustic nest on the bank of the hedgerow, and his mate's 

 four or five curiously-scrawled eggs — a peculiarity 

 which has gained for him the local name of " Writ- 

 ing Lark" in not a few country places. There are 

 also many birds of the Thrush tribe to be met with 

 in farm and garden — indeed every British species 

 might be included, if we except the Ring-ouzel; but 



