THE CIEL BUNTING 189 



last pair sang at intervals every day during my visit 

 from a tree in the churchyard, and from a big sycamore 

 growing at the side of it. On July 14 I had a good 

 opportunity of judging the penetrative power of this 

 bunting's voice, for by chance, just as the bells com- 

 menced ringing for the six o'clock Sunday evening 

 service, the bird, perched on a small cypress in the 

 churchyard, began to sing. Though only about forty 

 yards from the tower, he was not in the least discom- 

 posed by the clanging of the bells, but sang at proper 

 intervals the usual number of times six or eight 

 his high, incisive voice sounding distinct through that 

 tempest of jangled metallic music. 



I was often at Farringdon, a village close by, and 

 there, too, the churchyard had its cirl bunting, singing 

 merrily at intervals from a perch not above thirty 

 yards from the building. And as at Selborne and 

 Farringdon, so I have found it in most places in 

 Hampshire, especially in the southern half of the 

 county ; the cirl is the village bunting whose favourite 

 singing place is in the quiet churchyard or the shade- 

 trees at the farm: compared with other members of 

 the genus he might almost be called our domestic 

 bunting. The yellow-hammer is never heard in a 

 village : at Selborne to find him one had to climb 

 the hill and go out on the common, and there he 

 could be heard drawling out his lazy song all day 

 long. How curious to think that Gilbert White never 

 distinguished between these two species, although it is 



