GENUS 36. EMBERIZA. BUNTING. 

 BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 

 SPECIES I, E. AMERICANA. 



[Plate III. Fig. 2.] 



CaUtndra pratensis,the May Bird, BARTRAM, p. 291. Jlrct. ZooL 

 228. Emberiza Americana, Ind. Orn. p. 411, 42. PEALE'S 

 Museum, JVo. 5952.* 



OF this bird I have but little to say. They arrive in Penn- 

 sylvania, from the south, about the middle of May; abound in 

 the neighbourhood of Philadelphia; and seem to prefer level 

 fields, covered with rye-grass, timothy, or clover, where they 

 build their nest, fixing it in the ground, and forming it of fine 

 dried grass. The female lays five white eggs, sprinkled with 

 specks and lines of black. Like most part of their genus, they 

 are nowise celebrated for musical powers. Their whole song 

 consists of five notes, or, more properly, of two notes; the first 

 repeated twice and slowly, the second thrice, and rapidly, re- 

 sembling chip, chip, eke che che. Of this ditty, such as it is, 

 they are by no means parsimonious, for, from their first arrival, 

 for the space of two or three months, every level field of grain 

 or grass is perpetually serenaded with chip, chip, che che che. 

 In their shape and manners they very much resemble the Yel- 

 low-Hammer of Britain (E. citrinella); like them they are 

 fond of mounting to the top of some half-grown tree, and there 

 chirrupping for half an hour at a time. In travelling through 

 different parts of New York and Pennsylvania, in spring and 

 summer, wherever I came to level fields of deep grass, I have 



* We add the following- synonymes: Emberiza Americana, GMEL. Syst. 1 } 

 p. 872. LATH. Syn. 2, p. 197, pi. 44, FringiUaJlaricollis, GMEI. Syst. i, 926. 



