EMBERIZID^E. 169 



and yellow mixed ; legs, toes and claws light brown. 

 In winter the head is much more marked with black. 

 The female has less yellow about the head, and the 

 general colour is not so bright. The young birds 

 have no yellow on the head, which is a sort of dull 

 rusty brown till after the first moult. Varieties of 

 the Yellowhammer occasionally occur : one rather 

 curious one is described in the ' Zoologist' for 1864, 

 in which the upper parts were deep cream- colour, 

 tail and wing-coverts white. 



The eggs are of a dullish white ground, slightly 

 tinged with dull purple, and scrawled all over with 

 brown lines ; they are subject to variety. There is a 

 notice in the ' Zoologist' of a perfectly white variety : 

 in this case the nest contained four eggs all white. 



CIRL BUNTING, Emberiza cirlus. The Girl Bunt- 

 ing is is by no means common in these parts : those 

 in my collection, which I shot here in March, 1864, 

 are the first and the last I have ever seen in my own 

 immediate neighbourhood ; I have, however, seen 

 some specimens at Mr. Bidgood's, which were 

 obtained in the neighbourhood of Wiveliscornbe. 



The species was first added to the list of British 

 birds by Colonel Montagu, who found the Girl 

 Bunting in South Devon, between Teignmouth and 

 Kingsbridge : he at first supposed it was confined to 

 Devonshire, but he afterwards procured specimens 

 from Somersetshire, near Bridgwater and Glaston- 

 bury, on the road from which place to Wells I have 



