59G Mr. G. L. Bates on the 



yellow margin of the gape, wliieh together formed a con- 

 spicuous yellow circle when the mouth was opened \\ ide. It 

 is a curious fact that this nestling's stomach contained sand : 

 as the young one had prohably never been out of the nest 

 befoi'e, the old bird must have procured it. 



The nest above referred to, and another nest brought 

 Mith a sitting bird of this species and fragments of a 

 broken egg, were little cups somewhat rudely built of fine 

 fibres of dry bark of weeds or plantain leaf-stalks, 



Emreriza CABAMsr. (Plate XI. fig. 11, egg.) 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 342 ; Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 54. 



The food of this Bunting consists of small grasshoppers. 



A young bird with the plumage half-grown (No. 4314) 

 shews some interesting differences in coloration from the 

 adult. The adult has a white throat, white wing-bars, 

 white superciliary stripes, and white ends to tlic outer 

 tail-feathers. The last character — that of the white in the 

 tail — is common to all species of Ernbcri.za, while the otiier 

 white markings belong to this species alone, or to it and 

 one or two others. These peculiar white markings of the 

 species are replaced by brown in the young bird, while the 

 outer tail-feathers are white as in the adult. 



A pair of these birds had a nest and reared their young 

 in a bunch of plantains in full view of my house, though 

 they were so shy that they were seldom seen. Two other 

 nests were found and brought to me with the birds. These 

 nests were shallow and loosely built of dried leaves and 

 small stems, with a few finer fibres inside. One tliat came 

 in situ on tlie branch was set in thick foliage. In one of 

 the nests was the nestling above described ; in the otiier 

 were two eggs (Nos. 452, 453) measuring 22 x 15*5 and 

 21 X 15*5 mm, 



[These eggs arc of a rather Avidc regular oval shape, and 

 very slightly glossy. They are dull white, with long irregular 

 fine scrawled lines and blotches of pale umber-brown and 

 pale grey, most of the grey shell-markings being veiy 

 indistinct.— W. R. O.-G.] 



