COMMON HUNTING AND REED BUNTING. 169 



Like all Buntings, the Common Bunting subsists on 

 various seeds, and in the summer months on insects and 

 larvae. Like its congeners, it becomes partially grega- 

 rious in the winter months, and is often seen in the com- 

 pany of Yellow Buntings, Greenfinches, and Larks. In 

 the corn-fields, when the grain is almost ready for the 

 sickle, we often see the Common Buntings alight on the 

 straws, and bending them down by their weight, feed on 

 the grain unobserved. Noxious seeds are also consumed 

 and many a smiling acre owes its fertility to these birds, 

 who ravenously feed on these seeds, which if left would 

 speedily convert the surrounding fallows into tangled 

 weedy wastes. 



When the wintry floods have subsided, and the 

 showery month of April calls all things into vigour, as 

 we wander on the banks of the river or canal, where the 

 rushes and waterflags bend and sway in the vernal 

 breeze, and the surface of the water ruffles under its 

 gentle breath, we sometimes see a bird, or most frequently 

 a pair of them, the male dressed in a garb similar to 

 the Yellow Bunting, but with a jet black head and white 

 collar, and the female much more sombre, without the 

 black head, and the under parts much lighter coloured. 

 These little choristers are Reed Buntings. See how the 

 male bird perches as high up yonder rush stem as 

 possible, and with tail jerking quite as frequently as the 

 Wagtail pours forth a few pleasing notes. Short and 

 somewhat monotonous as they are, still they are his love 

 song, and his more shy and retiring mate no doubt 

 experiences the same degree of pleasure from them as 

 the female Nightingale does from the lovely trills of her 

 mate. As we wander on, the birds flit before us in un- 

 dulating rapid flight, now alighting on the reeds or on 

 the sprays of the bushes skirting the stream, and then 



