THE YELLOW BUNTING. 17 



some of them is highly prized. The common bunting has 

 rather a sober plumage ; but the others are equally remark- 

 able for the richness of their tints and the beauty of their 

 contrasts. Their want of song, however, prevents them from 

 being sought after as cage-birds, so that they are neglected, 

 and persecuted as creatures formed only for destroying or 

 being destroyed. 



That, where small seeds are cultivated, the buntings com- 

 mit very considerable ravages, is true ; and they also consume 

 a portion of the corn, especially of any patch that gets ripe 

 before the surrounding fields. But during the rest of the 

 year, though they are not very welcome visitants in gardens, 

 they are of very great service to the fields in consuming the 

 seeds of the large weeds ragwort, corn marygold, and the 

 other pests of thin and ill-cultivated soils. Where small 

 seeds are sown at all seasons, and seed time and harvest are 

 blended together throughout the year, the wild birds which 

 remain true to the seasons, while man forces his cultivation 

 against them, are in so far mischievous ; but in places where 

 there are only seasonal crops, that is not so much the case. 

 The time at which the early crops are ripe, is, or should be, 

 nearly that during which the graminivorous birds are under- 

 going their moult ; and as the little birds all prefer smaller 

 seeds to grain, and consequently stubble lands to those on 

 which there are crops, there should always be stubble for them 

 against the time that they congregate in flocks. 



THE YELLOW BUNTING (Emleriza citrinella). 



The yellow bunting, yellow hammer, yowley, yaldrine, or 

 many other provincial names, (the number of which prove 

 its abundance,) is one of the handsomest of our resident 

 birds. 



A figure of the male in the breeding plumage, one-third of 

 the lineal dimensions, is given on the plate at p. 386, vol. i. 



VOL. II. C 



