20 GRAMINI VOILE. 



finer stylo than most birds, they are continually dropping 

 down on the beaten paths, in the farm-yards, and even in the 

 streets of towns, when the fields are covered with snow. 

 They do not flock so numerously to particular places as the 

 sky-larks, because they subsist less upon worms and more 

 upon seeds ; but they do collect on the open fields near the 

 copses and other places to which they resort in the summer ; 

 and though they cannot positively be said to migrate, they 

 pass partially from the colder parts of the country to the 

 wanner. On these excursions they mingle freely and harmo- 

 niously with the other graminivorous birds, especially with 

 chaffinches, and they evidently have then an instinct for 

 society without reference to their own species. When a single 

 one is seen in the cold weather, it is usually jerking about 

 swiftly on the wing, and uttering its call-note : and it wiJl 

 alight among pigeons or poultry, or even (forgetting the 

 summer ravages) beside magpies, if there are no little birds 

 in view. 



Many of these little birds, which seek their food together 

 during the winter days, divide into the different species 

 before they roost, and meet and associate again in the 

 morning. In these cases there is often a sort of welcome 

 at meeting, and farewell at parting. They wheel together, 

 making the air resound with their little wings ; and then they 

 alight to feed, or separate to go to their respective perches 

 or roosts. The yellow buntings, at parting from their com- 

 panions of the day, generally alight upon some tree or hedge, 

 in thick array, and chatter there for a little before they 

 betake themselves to their repose, which, unless the day is 

 very dark, they never do till after sunset. The perches which 

 resident birds choose in these intervals between their feeding 

 and repose, are generally of the same character with those 

 from which the male delivers his love song in the pairing 

 season. That is the case with the yellow bunting ; and what 



