BUNTINGS. 409 



Little Bunting Among the Arctic birds from time to time straying into Western 



Europe during their seasonal migrations, must be mentioned the little 

 bunting (E. pusiMa ). Near Archangel Messrs. Alston and Harvie-Brown found it 

 very common in the summer, although local in its choice of nesting-oTounds. 

 They often heard its low, sweet song, which is compared rather to that of a 

 warbler than of a bunting, and they observed that it frequented the pine-woods 

 and mixed timber. Mr. Seebohm supplies the following account of his finding the 

 eggs of this bunting in the valley of the Yenesei. There " it was extremely 

 abundant, and its unobtrusive and quiet song was constantly heard before the 

 snow, which was lying to a depth of five or six feet up to the first of June, had 

 sufficiently melted to make the forest penetrable. I found the first nest of this 

 bird on the 23rd of June. I was on the south bank of the Koorayika, 

 a tributary of the Yenesei, and was scrambling through the forest down the hill 

 towards my boat, amongst tangled underwood and fallen tree-trunks, rotten and 

 moss-grown, when a little bunting started out of the grass at my feet. It did not 

 fly away, but flitted from branch to branch within six feet of me. I knew at once 

 that it must have a nest; and in a quarter of a minute I found it, half hidden in 

 the grass and moss. It contained five eggs. I have seldom seen a bird so tame. 

 The nest was nothing but a hole made in the dead leaves, grass, and moss, copiously 

 and carefully lined with fine dead grass. I took a second nest in the forest, on the 

 opposite bank of the river, on the 29th of June, containing three eggs; 

 this nest was in a similar position to the foregoing, and the behaviour of the parent 

 bird precisely the same. On the 30th of June we cast anchor about one 

 hundred and ten versts below the Koorayika, and I went on shore to shoot, and 

 found a third nest of this interesting little bird, containing five eggs which were 

 slightly incubated; this nest was lined with reindeer-hair. On the 6th of July, 

 a few miles further down the river, I went on shore again and found another nest 

 of the little bunting, this time containing six eggs ; it was similar to the last, rather 

 more sparingly lined with reindeer hair, but the tameness of the bird was just the 

 same. The eggs in the first nest are very handsome, almost exact miniatures of 

 those of the corn-bunting. The ground-colour is pale grey, with bold twisted 

 blotches and irregular round spots of very dark grey, and equally large underlying 

 shell-markings of paler grey. The eggs in the second nest are much redder, being 

 brown rather than grey, but the markings are similar." The adult male little 

 bunting in breeding-dress has the upper-parts rufous brown, with broad black 

 centres to the feathers ; the centre of the crown is vinous chestnut, with a broad 

 black streak on each side, forming a band ; a superciliary line, lores, sides of face, 

 ear-coverts and throat, are all vinous chestnut. The remainder of the lower-parts are 

 dull white, the lower throat, fore-neck, and breast, as well as the sides of the body, 

 streaked with black. The adult female scarcely differs from the male, but is not 

 quite so bright coloured. 



This dull-coloured heavy bird (E. •miliaria) is common in many 



parts of Europe, from Southern Spain to the Hebrides ; but being to a 



large extent dependent upon grain-crops for its existence, its distribution naturally 



varies with that cereal. Sometimes it resorts to the pastures, uttering its droning 



song from the top of some tall hedgerow tree ; but more often it frequents arable 



