SPECIES 2. EMBERIZA ERYTHROPHTHALM& 



TOWHE BUNTING. 

 [Plate X. Fig. 5. Male.] 



Fringilla erythrophthalma, LINN. Syst.p. 318, 6. Le Pinsonde la 

 Caroline, BRISS. Orn. m, p. 169, 44. BUFF. Ois. iv, p. 141. 

 LATH, n, p. 199, JVo. 43. -CATESB. Car. i, PJ. 34. PEALE'S 

 Museum, JVo. 5970. 



THIS is a very common, but humble and inoffensive species r 

 frequenting close sheltered thickets, where it spends most of its 

 time in scratching up the leaves for worms, and for the larvae 

 and eggs of insects. It is far from being shy, frequently suffer- 

 ing a person to walk round the bush or thicket where it is at 

 work, without betraying any marks of alarm ; and when disturb- 

 ed, uttering the notes Towhe^ repeatedly. At times the male 

 mounts to the top of a small tree, and chants his few simple 

 notes for an hour at a time. These are loud, not unmusical, 

 something resembling those of the Yellow-hammer of Britain, 

 but more mellow, and more varied. He is fond of thickets with 

 a southern exposure, near streams of water, and where there is 

 plenty of dry leaves; and is found, generally, over the whole 

 United States. He is not gregarious, and you seldom see more 

 than two together. About the middle or twentieth of April 

 they arrive in Pennsylvania, and begin building about the first 

 week in May. The nest is fixed on the ground among the dry 

 leaves, near, and sometimes under, a thicket of briars, and is large 

 and substantial. The outside is formed of leaves and pieces of 

 grape-vine bark, and the inside of fine stalks of dry grass, the 

 cavity completely sunk beneath the surface of the ground, and 

 sometimes half covered above with dry grass or hay. The eggs 

 are usually five, of a pale flesh colour, thickly marked with specks 



