4 o8 PERCHING BIRDS. 



sooner than snow-buntings, while their notes are somewhat more silvery in tone. 

 ''In captivity their habits seem no more terrestrial than snow -buntings. As 

 spring drew on, the tints of the birds in my aviary were observed to deepen, and 

 they even showed a disposition to nest by carrying about bents of hay." The 

 male Lapland bunting in breeding-plumage has the entire head, throat, and upper 

 breast black ; a rich chestnut collar reaches from behind the head on to the back ; 

 and the upper-parts are brownish black margined with buff and white. The 

 adult female differs from the male in having light margins to the feathers of the 

 head, throat, and flanks, while the feathers of the chin and upper throat are 

 buffish white, with half-concealed black bases. After the autumnal moult, all the 

 feathers have light edges. Males of the year closely resemble adult females, but 

 differ from them in having no black centres to the feathers on the nape. 



The Typical The genus Emberiza includes the typical buntings, all of 



Buntings. which are crestless, and have forked tails ; the bill being hard, short, 

 and conical ; the first primary small, and the fourth or fifth commonly the longest 

 in the wing, and considerably longer than the next; while the metatarsus is 

 covered with scales in front and on the sides, with an entire plate forming a sharp 

 ridge behind. These buntings are represented by numerous species from the tem- 

 perate and northern parts of the Old World, as well as from North Africa and India. 

 The reed-bunting or reed-sparrow (Emberiza schceniclus) is 

 found on swampy ground over almost the whole of continental 

 Europe from the South of Spain to the North Cape. Among the aits and osier 

 beds of the Thames and its tributaries, it forms a conspicuous object in the summer 

 time, as it chants its sweet snatches of song from some prominent position by the 

 waterside. The female builds her nest among rushes or long grass on the side 

 of a bank, or in a dense tussock of the morass which forms her home, not unfre- 

 quently amid a tiny forest of cotton-grass, whose white tufts of delicate down 

 transform a few acres of black bog into a miniature paradise of beauty. The eggs 

 are drab in ground-colour, and streaked with black and dark purple. The young 

 of this bunting, like those of certain other species which nest upon the ground, 

 frequently leave their nest before they can fly, trusting to their protective colours 

 to secure their safety. Resident in some districts, this bunting in others is a 

 partial migrant, a considerable number passing the winter in the British Isles, 

 where they occasionally seek shelter in the centre of large woods at a distance 

 from their usual aquatic haunts. Their food consists of seeds of water-plants, small 

 molluscs, and insects ; but occasionally they feed in the stubble-fields. The bird is 

 gregarious, and fond of associating in small and even large flocks during the winter 

 and spring months. We have but rarely come across white individuals of this 

 species, nor have we yet examined a pied specimen. The general colour of the 

 adult male in the breeding-season is rufous, with broad black centres to the feathers 

 of the back; the wing-coverts are chestnut; the primaries blackish, edged with 

 rufous ; the tail-feathers dark brown, the two outer ones being edged with white ; 

 the crown of the head as well as the sides of the face and ear-coverts are entirely 

 black, and separated from the back by a broad band of white, which forms a 

 collar joining the white sides of the head ; the throat is black, and the remainder 

 of the under surface white, streaked with black on the sides of the body. 



