THE YELLOW BUNTING 
EMBERIZA CITRINELLA 
Loca names in surrounding counties : ‘* Writing Lark ”’ 
(Essex, Surrey). 
Stratus IN British AviraunA: A common and widely 
distributed resident, its numbers perceptibly increased 
in autumn. 
RapiaL DistTriBUTION WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 
Paut’s : The Yellow Bunting cannot be classed with those 
many species that are more or less familiar in the central 
portions of the Metropolitan area. We must take prac- 
tically the seven-mile radius before we can reasonably 
expect to meet with this bird in even tolerable numbers, 
and then it is certainly a local species, becoming increas- 
ingly frequent as the outer ring of suburban London is 
reached. Between the seven- and nine-mile radius I can 
record the Yellow Bunting from the Wimbledon and 
Richmond districts, from ‘Twyford, Park Royal, and 
Wembley, from Kingsbury, from Hendon, Barnet, and 
Enfield, from Epping, Wanstead, Blackheath, Bromley, 
and Morden. Beyond these limits it becomes scarcely 
necessary to specify the districts, for the Yellow Bunting 
becomes more and more widely distributed and general 
in its occurrence. In winter this Bunting occasionally 
mixes with flocks of House Sparrows about hay- and corn- 
ricks, and I have often met with it in the hedges by the 
wayside about Streatham and Dulwich. On the whole 
it seems to be scarcer in the immediate southern suburbs 
than the others. 
Showy plumage and a habit of perching conspicuously 
on the tops of hedges and bushes render the Yellow 
Bunting little likely to be overlooked. ‘The song of the 
male is one of the first to greet the ear in spring, and 
his voice, commencing in February, is one of the most 
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