16 GRAMINI VOILE. 



all inhabit near houses, or resort thither in the winter, they 

 are birds with which every one is familiar. There are at least 

 seven British species, the yellow bunting, the common or 

 grey bunting, the reed bunting, the cirl bunting, the snow 

 bunting, the lark-heeled bunting, and the ortolan bunting. 

 The first three, generally distributed ; the cirl resident, but 

 local ; the snow bunting, a winter visitant ; and the other 

 two, stragglers. 



The general characters are, the bill very strong, short, 

 conical, compressed laterally, stump edged, but without any 

 tooth or notch ; the upper mandible narrowish, turned inward 

 at the edges, and with a bony knob at the palatal end. Thus 

 it is well fitted for breaking the shells or rinds of seeds, and 

 ejecting them without losing any of the farinaceous kernel, 

 which, from the way that the mandibles close, drops into the 

 bill rather than out of it. The wings are of moderate length, 

 the second and third feathers the longest, the tail spreading 

 towards the extremity, and forked or lobed. The feet, with 

 three toes before and one behind, all free. Those of the resi- 

 dent species have the claws short and hooked, and adapted for 

 perching on trees, and also on the culms and stems of those 

 herbaceous plants from which they pick the seeds. These 

 live chiefly upon seeds, of which they consume a vast quan- 

 tity, seeking them indiscriminately upon the plants that pro- 

 duce them, or on the ground; but they also eat insects. 

 The snowy bunting does not perch, but runs on the ground. 

 It has the claw on the hinder toe produced, as in the larks, or 

 rather intermediate between the larks and the other bunt- 

 ings. Birds of this genus have plenty of voice, but no song ; 

 and as their vegetable food is best seen in the clear light, 

 they are always active in the heat of the day, and keep up an 

 incessant, though harsh and tuneless, clattering. Their air is 

 rather heavy, and they are careless birds, easily snared by the 

 fowler. They get very fat in the autumn, and the flesh of 



