"2 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



beak is dark horn-brown above, but paler and bluish below ; the feet yellowish 

 horn ; the iris hazel. The female is much duller, and chiefly differs from that sex 

 of the Yellow Hammer in the absence of yellow on the crown, and the olivaceous 

 rump ; the yellow of the under parts is also not so bright, and the streaking is 

 better denned. Young birds nearly resemble the female, but are still duller. The 

 male, after the autumn moult, has ashy fringes to the black feathers of the throat, 

 which, however, disappear in the spring. 



In disposition the Cirl Bunting appears to nearly resemble the Yellow Ham- 

 mer ; but during the breeding-season it is evidently somewhat more skulking, for 

 although I have frequently heard it singing in the hedges and in rough scrub, in 

 the lanes and little frequented roads of Kent, I have very rarely seen the per- 

 formers : even in an aviary I found it at all seasons much more shy and retiring. 

 I should therefore be inclined to think that an example mentioned by Lord Lilford 

 (Birds of Northamptonshire, Vol. I, p. 176) must have escaped from confinement, 

 after some years of captivity in an aviary. He says : " as I was watching my 

 Emus and other birds in the courtyard at Lilford, a fine male Cirl Bunting flew 

 down from a high elm tree, settled on the ground within a few yards of where I 

 stood, and began feeding on the grain which had been scattered for the Emus, and 

 at which several Sparrows and Chaffinches were already busy. I had this bird in 

 full view for some minutes, as he hopped about and regaled himself, till he was 

 attacked by a Sparrow, and flew up to the tree from whence he had come." * 



The song of the Cirl Bunting differs from that of the Yellow Hammer chiefly 

 in the absence of the terminal double note ; it has therefore been compared with 

 that of the Lesser Redpoll and Lesser Whitethroat. The call-note of the young 

 and adult are said by Mr. Witch ell to be " not unlike the call- squeak of the Tree 

 Pipit"; according to Seebohm the adult call-note "sounds like a monotonous and 

 plaintive chea-che." 



Subsequent to taking my first nest of the Cirl Bunting in 1877, I frequently 

 heard and occasionally saw the cock-bird in the same neighbourhood, but I did 

 not obtain a nest again until 1884, when I found two at Tunstall, the first on the 

 24th and the second on the 3oth May : four years later I obtained permission to 

 nest in some private grounds near Frinstead, in Kent, and on the 26th May I 

 took my fourth and last nest of this species. 



The Cirl Bunting appears to be double-brooded, the first nest being usually 

 built some time in May, and the second in July. The sites chosen for the nest 

 are very similar to those selected by the Yellow Bxinting : according to Howard 



* Howard Sauiiders observes that in snowy weather, in the south of France, he has seen small flocks 

 feeding along with Sparrows and other Finches, on the refuse in the streets, but Lord I,ilford's bird was noticed 

 at the end of June, when one would have expected it to be shy. A.G.B. 



