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E M B E R I Z A. 



On many parts of continental Europe, the common 

 bunting is a migrant ; but in most parts of the British 

 islands it is resident the whole year, though it flocks 

 upon the lower fields during the winter, and lives more 

 dispersedly in the breeding season. In the Shetland 

 Islands, it appears in small flocks as a migrant during 

 the winter ; but as the spring sets in, and the nesting 

 time approaches, it entirely leaves those islands, and 

 is not found upon them again during the summer and 

 autumn. It evinces a preference to champaign 

 countries that abound in corn and meadows, being 

 very rarely found in uncultivated tracts, or even in 

 grass fields that are far from arable land. It may 

 frequently be seen on the highest part of a hedge, or 

 uppermost branch of a tree, uttering its dissonant 

 and harsh cry, which it repeats at short intervals. 

 These birds in this situation may be seen and heard 

 during the greater part of summer, after which they 

 may be met with in flocks, and continue so during the 

 greater part of winter. At the time the female is 

 busied with incubation, the male sits on a neighbour- 

 ing tree, and cheers her with his rude song, taking her 

 place occasionally at noon, when she is said also to 

 sing, perched in her turn. The nest is placed among 

 tall herbage, on the ground, or else in a very low 

 shrub, about four or five inches above the surface of 

 the soil, formed externally of straw, lined with fibrous 

 roots, or dry grass, and occasionally finished with 

 wool or long hair. There are from four to six eggs, 

 of a dirty white, spotted and veined with reddish- 

 brown and ash-colour. The young quit the nest 

 before they can fly, being fond of running on the 

 ground, and the parents continue to guard and feed 

 them till they are fledged ; but they not unfrequently 

 betray them from their anxiety for the safety of the 

 brood ; and if a person happens to approach near the 

 spot, they wheel round his head in a doleful manner. 

 They are sometimes brought into the market and sold 

 for larks, and, as an article of food, are not inferior to 

 them, but they may easily be distinguished by the 

 form of the bill and the tooth-like knob which they 

 have on the palate. The fat birds are reckoned a 

 great delicacy, but when they get old they are lean, 

 dry, and very tough. They are fattened in Rome in 

 the same manner as the millet. They are used by 

 the bird-catchers in the autumn as call-birds, and they 

 not only entice the foolish buntings into the snare, 

 but different kinds of small birds ; and they are put 

 into low cages without bars or roosts for this purpose. 

 As this species of bunting feeds its young, in great 

 part at least, upon caterpillars, and as its winter food 

 consists, in part, of the seeds of those plants which 

 are most troublesome to the farmer as weeds, it is 

 to be regarded as a serviceable bird, and not as a 

 destroyer. 



THE FOOLISH BUNTING (E. Cia). This species 

 gets its name from the readiness with which it comes 

 at the call of any other of the genus, more especially 

 the yellow hammer, and the disposition which it has 

 to go into any sort of trap or snare. In appearance 

 it bears some resemblance to the common bunting, 

 but it does not inhabit either exactly the same coun- 

 tries or the same districts. It is found in summer in 

 the mountainous parts of southern Europe ; and 

 although it descends to the plains, and ranges at least 

 as far as the middle of Germany in the winter, it is 

 rarely seen near the coasts, and never, we believe ,in 

 the British islands. In size it is inferior to the yel- 

 low hammer being only six inches long, of which the 



tail measures two and a half; the beak, five lines in 

 length, is very sharp, blackish above, and of a greyish 

 colour below ; the iris is dusky ; the legs are nine 

 lines in height, and of a brownish flesh-colour. The 

 head is grey, spotted with red, having small black 

 streaks on the top, and an indistinct black line on the 

 sides. The cheeks are light ash-colour ; a dusky white 

 streak passes from the nostrils above the eyes, a black 

 one crosses them, and uniting with a third that springs 

 from the under angle of the beak, encircles the cheeks ; 

 the back is reddish brown, speckled with black, the 

 rump light red brown ; the throat pale ash-colour, the 

 under part of the neck, to the middle of the breast, 

 grey, the rest of the under part of the body red, but 

 the belly is somewhat lighter ; the small wing-coverts 

 are dark grey, the others are black ; the anterior 

 quill-feathers are edged with a reddish colour, the 

 others, with the lowest row of the coverts, are red ; 

 the second row of the coverts have their points reddish 

 white, which form a band of this colour on the wings ; 

 the tail, rather forked, is black, the two outer feathers 

 have a wedge-shaped white spot on the inner base, 

 the two middle ones are bordered and tipped with 

 deep red. In this species, the female does not differ 

 very greatly from the male : in her the head is of a 

 grey colour, with black spots, and a reddish tint ; the 

 streaks are much less conspicuous than in the male ; 

 the ash-colour on the throat has a reddish tinge, and 

 is streaked with dusky black ; and the whole of the 

 under part is paler in the colour. 



In the summer they disappear entirely from the 

 low and cultivated grounds, and are found only in 

 wild and upland places, though there they are inha- 

 bitants of the open waters, and not of the wooded dis- 

 tricts. They do not quit the low country till March 

 or April, so that it is probable that they have only one 

 brood in the year, whereas those which nestle in richer 

 places have, in general, if not invariably, two. 



THE REED BUNTING (Emberiza Schcenidus). This 

 bird is nearly the size of the mountain sparrow, and is 

 sometimes, though very improperly, called the " reed 

 sparrow." It has been confounded by authors, if not 

 by observers, with another bird, to which it has little 

 or no other resemblance than their both inhabiting 

 the same places. In their structure, their habits, their 

 nests, their eggs, and even in the purpose that takes 

 them to the thickly matted aquatic plants, these 

 birds are entirely different. . The one is a genuine 

 warbler, having a melodious and varied, though 

 feeble song ; as such it feeds upon insects, resorts 

 to the aquatic plants for them, and does not quit 

 the country till the supply fails. The bird under 

 consideration is a genuine bunting, resident, like 

 the other short-clawed buntings, among tall herbage, 

 of which it eats the seeds, and hence it is found only 

 where graminiferous plants grow ; while the warbler, 

 makes merely its dwelling in the herbage, but does not 

 feed on any part of it. It is found among all the tall 

 aquatic plants, though mostly among ridges and reeds, 

 as these form the thickest matting in the shallows and 

 margins of the waters. The bunting is much the 

 larger bird of the two, nearly equal in size to the 

 yellow bunting, and double the weight, at least, of the 

 sedge warbler. The bunting's nest is very seldom 

 placed in the reeds, but mostly near, though it is occa- 

 sionally at a considerable distance, in a tuft or under 

 a low bush ; and when it is among reeds, it is placed 

 where they form a dry tuft or other support, and never 

 suspended to them by a basket-work of leaves, like 



