THE BLACK-THEOATED BUNTING. 



483 



purple, and covered with spots and streaks of very dark purplish, brown. The usual 

 locality for the nest is among coarse rank herbage or bramble-bushes, and it is seldom 

 more than a few inches from the ground. The nest is completed about the middle of 

 April, and the young birds are in the habit of leaving their home before they can fly, and 

 ramble among the herbage, where they are fed by their parents until they can get their 

 own living. 



The general colour of the Bunting is somewhat \]ke that of the lark, so that in some 

 parts of England it goes by the name of Lark 

 Bunting. The upper part of the body is 

 hair-brown, mottled with a darker hue in 

 the centre of each feather, and taking a 

 yellowish tinge on the wing-coverts and 



on 

 quill-feathers. The chin, throat, breast, and 

 abdomen are whitish brown, covered with 

 longitudinal streaks of dark-brown, of a 

 conical shape on the breast, and linear upon 

 the flanks. The total length of the bird is 

 about seven inches. 



The Black-theoated Bunting is a native 

 of America, and is rather less than the pre- 

 ceding species. Of this bird and its habits, 

 Wilson writes as follows. 



" They arrive in Pennsylvania, from the 

 south, about the middle of May, descend in 

 the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, and seem 

 to prefer level fields covered with rye grass, 

 timothy or clover, where they build their 

 nest, fixing it on the ground, and forming it 

 of fine dried grass. The female lays five 

 white eggs, sprinkled with specks and lines 

 of black. Like most part of their genus, they 

 are nowise celebrated for musical powers. 

 Their whole song consists of five notes, or 

 more properly of two notes, the first re- 

 peated twice, and slowly, the second thrice 

 and rapidly, resembling ' chip-chip, che- 

 che-che.' In their shape and manner they 

 very much resemble the yellow ammers of 

 Britain ; like them, they are fond of mount- 

 ing to the top of some half-grown tree, and 

 there chirruping for half an hour at a 

 time. 



In travelling through different parts of 

 New York and Pennsylvania in spring and 

 summer, whenever I came to level fields of 

 deep grass, I have constantly heard these 

 birds around me. In August they become 

 mute, and soon after, that is towards the beginning of September, leave us altogether." 



The top of the head is greenish yellow, the neck is dark ashen grey, and the back 

 rusty red, touched with black, the same colour extending to the wings and tail, but of a 

 darker hue, without the black spots. The chin is white, and the throat is marked with a 

 heart-shaped patch of deep black edged with white. The breast is yellow, and a line of 

 the same hue extends over the eyes and into the lower angle of the bill. The lesser 

 coverts are bay, and the abdomen greyish white. The total length of the bird is about six 

 inches and a half 



II 2 



BLAHK-THROATED BUNTING.— EMspfea AmeHc&iM. 



