22! GRAMINIVOILE. 



or in a very low bush formed externally of straws or coarse 

 withered grass, lined with finer fibres, and sometimes finished 

 with long hair or wool. The eggs are from four to six in 

 number, of a dull yellowish grey, with lines and drops of 

 darker grey and reddish brown. 



These birds are very assiduous in their nesting. The male 

 continues his song during the incubation, and when the female 

 leaves the nest, which in most close-setting birds is about 

 mid-day, the male takes her place, and she is said to screech 

 a stave to him in return. The one which is perching gene- 

 rally perches on the top of herbage, or on the outside twig; 

 of a hedge ; and even when it settles on a stalk that has run, 

 to seed, which it does very firmly, how much soever the 

 stalk may bend, it now and then gives out its cry. It not 

 Tinfrequently bends down the stalk by its weight, and retains, 

 it on the ground till all the seeds are abstracted. 



Though the nest is tolerably well concealed, the birds are 

 so very anxious about the place where it is, that they are apt 

 to reveal it. They, or rather the one that is on the watch,, 

 for the sitting one does not rise till the very last extremity,, 

 fly round any person that approaches, and plead with so plain- 

 tive a cry that one can easily tell that a nest is near. The 

 young walk much sooner than they fly, and thus quit the 

 nest to run and squat among the herbage, in part no doubt 

 finding their own food ; though the old ones continue to* 

 attend and feed them until they take to the wing, and are 

 able to grapple with those stalks, the seeds on which are then 

 beginning to be ripe. The common buntings commit ravages- 

 in the corn-fields, especially upon oats ; but like the others, 

 they prefer the smaller and more oily seeds. 



As cold sets in, they collect in flocks, keeping together 

 during the winter, and often pass into places where they are 

 never known to breed. They do not nestle except where 

 there is moderately tall vegetation of some kind or other ; 



