40 EMBERIZID^. 



visitors to the farm-yard and barn-door for the sake of the 

 grain to be there obtained. Knapp in his ' Journal of a 

 Naturalist ' has described a case of serious injury done by this 

 bird, having witnessed a barley-rick, standing in a detached 

 field, entirely stripped of its thatch, which the Bunting had 

 effected by seizing the end of the straw, and deliberately 

 drawing it out, for the sake of any grain the ear might yet 

 contain. That this is a common habit may well be doubted, 

 and when indulged in the mischief is generally slight, for, as 

 Mr. Cecil Smith remarks, in a well-built stack the straws are 

 too closely and firmly packed to be pulled out without break- 

 ing ; but where the farmer is careless and the stacks are 

 loosely put together, as Saxby observes is the case in Shet- 

 land, great damage may thus ensue. 



This bird is said to roost generally in thick bushes, par- 

 ticularly during the cold nights of winter ; but many of them 

 also pass the night on the ground in stubble-fields, and being 

 caught with Skylarks in the nets employed for that purpose, 

 are brought with them to market for the use of the table. 



The Bunting is to be found in suitable localities through- 

 out Great Britain, but, though less common in Scotland than 

 in England, it reaches and breeds in the Outer Hebrides 

 extending even to St. Kilda in Orkney and Shetland. Mr. 

 Gray considers it less local in the west of Scotland than in 

 the east, and has observed its preference for the westerly 

 sides of islands, as in North Uist and Benbecula, where it 

 is known by the name of " Sparrow." As first noticed by 

 Jardine many years ago, the numbers of this species receive 

 a considerable addition at the time of the great general 

 migration in autumn or the beginning of winter, and speci- 

 mens obtained out of these flocks of foreign extraction, which 

 in Scotland do not appear to come further south than Angus, 

 are said to be larger and more thickly- feathered than our 

 native examples. In a less degree a like immigration is 

 observable on the east coast of England, in Lincolnshire 

 and Norfolk, but it does not seem to have been so commonly 

 remarked that at the same season the species almost totally 

 disappears from certain other localities, where in spring and 



