144 BRITISH BIRDS. 



EMBERIZA PUSILLA. 

 LITTLE BUNTING. 



(PLATE 15.) 



Emberiza pusilla, Pall. Reis. Russ. Reichs, iii. p. 697 (1776) ; et auctorum pluri- 

 morum Salvador!, Gray, Radde, Schrenck, Jerdon, Sivinhoe, Dresser, Newton, 

 &c. 



Emberiza schoenielus, var. minor, Nilss. Orn. Suec. i. p. 170 (1817). 



Emberiza durazzi, Bonap. Icon. Faun. ItaL Ucc. pi. 35. figs. 1 2 (1832-41). 



Buscaiia pusilla (Pall.), Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. ix. p. 163 (1857). 



Cynchramus pusillus (Pall.), Degl. et Gerle, Orn. Eur. i. p. 327 (1867). 



Notwithstanding the fact that this rare little Siberian Bunting visits 

 Heligoland almost every year, only a single example has been obtained in 

 the British Islands. It was exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society by the late Mr. Gould, who stated that it had been taken in a 

 clap-net near Brighton (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 377). In c The Ibis ' for 

 1865 (p. 113), Mr. Dawson Rowley furnished further particulars of its 

 capture ; and from him we learn that it was brought to Swaysland, the 

 Brighton bird-stuffer, by a boy on the 2nd of November, 1864, and that 

 it bore no evidence of ever having been in captivity. It is now in Mr. 

 Monk's collection. 



The Little Bunting is an Arctic bird, occasionally breeding on the tundra 

 above the limit of forest- growth, and rarely found in summer south of the 

 Arctic circle, except at considerable elevations. Its range extends from 

 the valley of the Dwina eastwards to the Pacific. It is common near 

 Archangel ; Harvie-Brown and I found it in considerable numbers in the 

 valley of the Petchora, as far north as lat. 68 ; Finsch observed it north 

 of Obdorsk up to the limit of forest-growth (about lat. 67^) ; I found it 

 common in the valley of the Yenesay up to lat. 71 ; Middendorff obtained 

 it on the Taimur peninsula, in the same latitude, and on the Stanovoi 

 Mountains; and in the St. -Petersburg Museum are skins collected by 

 Baron Maydell in the Tschuski Land. It also breeds in some of the 

 mountain districts of Eastern Siberia; Dybowsky found it during summer 

 in the mountains near Lake Baikal ; and Schrenck obtained a nest on the 

 Lower Amoor on the 17th of June, before the snow had all melted. It 

 passes through Mongolia, South Siberia, and Turkestan on migration, and 

 winters in North India, Burma, and China. It has not been recorded 

 from Kamtschatka or Japan; but Captain Wardlaw Ramsay obtained a 

 single example on the Andaman Islands. In Europe its appearance during 

 winter may almost be considered accidental ; but it has been found once 

 in Sweden, occasionally in Holland, and frequently in the south of France. 

 Several specimens are recorded from North Italy ; and it has been met 



