THE YELLOW BUNTING. 19 



with the terrors of these, as is the case with the wheat-ear ; 

 neither does it abound most about those other places which 

 popular superstition is prone to invest with supernatural ter- 

 rors, and to link with the malignant powers of the spiritual 

 world. It is a bird of the fields and the daylight, offending 

 in nothing, except the want of song be an offence ; and cer- 

 tainly not so disagreeable in that way, or so destructive of 

 small seeds in gardens, as the house-sparrow, but still it is a 

 marked bird ; and the very beauty of its eggs are, in some 

 places, made a ground for their wanton destruction. Accord- 

 ing to the absurd superstition, the parent birds are fed each 

 with a drop of the devil's Mood! on the morning of May- 

 day ; and that infernal draught taints the eggs with those 

 streaks and gouts, which, in truth, make them so beautiful. 

 What first gave rise to superstitions so absurd, and so con- 

 trary to all that we are taught to know of the nature of 

 spiritual beings, it is not easy to say ; but to the credit of the 

 times, they are fast wearing out. 



Instead of there being any thing repulsive about the yellow- 

 bunting, it is, song apart, one of the most interesting of our 

 little birds, and one which we can study summer and winter. 

 In the spring and summer, it frequents the hedges, bushes, 

 and copses, but not the thick forests. It is very assiduous 

 in the duties of its little household. The female sits so 

 closely, that she will suffer herself to be taken rather than, 

 expose her eggs to the cold ; the male at times feeds her ; 

 and when she flies out for a little, he takes her place during 

 her absence, so that after the incubation begins, the eggs are 

 never longer exposed than the time that the birds require to 

 shift ^places. The unfledged young are attended to with 

 similar assiduity ; and both parents toil hard in supplying 

 them with food and keeping them clean. 



When winter comes, the yellow buntings resort to more 

 open places : and as they are swift winged, and alight in 



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