THE BUNTINGS 169 



THE BUNTINGS 

 [EDMUND SELOUS] 



The Buntings, birds homely, but lovable (yet why the antithesis?), 

 albeit that they have much of the finch in appearance, and are, to a 

 large extent, similar in their habits, have yet, on account of some 

 structural peculiarities not shared by the true Fringillince, been 

 separated from these, and, under the title of Emberizince, stand now 

 upon their own merits. These, in a classificatory sense, I do not 

 propose to touch upon. They have been settled till the next 

 unsettlement, and, in the meanwhile, should be held final by all 

 who are not of sufficient authority, or who may lack ambition, to 

 produce or take part in such destined upheaval. Whatever my 

 own views may be, therefore, I suppress them, and the following 

 remarks, in so far as they may relate to this subject at all, will apply 

 to that period only in the growth of ornithological science when the 

 idea of a bunting, as distinct from a finch, had forced itself, after 

 long preparation, upon the slowly enlarging horizon of the human 

 intellect. When once it had, the next step was to decide which 

 species of the newly formed, or rather of the newly conceived group, 

 should, by virtue of a somewhat fuller or more typical display of the 

 required characters, together with a general conformity to bunting 

 traditions and habits, be held best qualified to represent it " That 

 proud honour claimed" (each, bien entendu, through its respective 

 adherents) the yellow-hammer (E. citrinella) and the corn-bunting 

 (E. miliaria). Between these two for the rest, I understand, had 

 no backers the judgment, and one may even say the passions, of 

 ornithologists were for long divided, so that some of that bitterness, 

 which the birds themselves, had they been capable of so high a flight, 

 would, no doubt, have felt on the subject, was, by a law of compensa- 

 tion which obtains in such cases, transferred to the rival champions 



