BLACK-HEADED BUNTING. 137 



them, though previously none "were to be seen. It builds and breeds 

 on the overgrown hills, and goes away early in August. Daring the 

 breeding time the male sits on the tops of the bushes, and lets its 

 agreeable, simple, Yellowhammer-like song be continually heard. It 

 is very stupid, and not at all shy; indeed it is frequently killed, by 

 those in quest of it, with a stick alone. It is at the same time 

 strange that the female is so seldom seen. I have only met with a 

 very small number. When they first arrive the male has the rust-red 

 plumage of the head in abundance, but this is by degrees rubbed 

 off." Lindermayer does not endorse Count Muhle's statement about 

 the paucity of females. 



Brehm, in Badeker's work upon European eggs, says, "Very little 

 is known about the nidification of this bird. Its eggs, of which it 

 lays five, are very similar to those of the other Buntings. One 

 variety is like that of the Snow Bunting. They are of a blue greenish 

 ground, delicately marked with dark and reddish grey spots, mostly 

 at the larger end. In form they are a longish oval, and the shell 

 is very soft and brittle." 



I copy the following from Salvadori, " Fauna d'ltalia:" — "This 

 bird arrives rather rarely in Italy. Ranzani mentions an individual 

 taken in the neighbourhood of Rimini. A few are captured almost 

 annually in Liguria. In Veronese Perini found many individuals, and 

 also a nest containing four young ones. It does not appear to be so 

 rare in Venetia, where it can easily pass on to Dalmatia and other 

 parts of the Levant, where it is very common. Count Camozzi, of 

 Bergamo, has in his collection two specimens from Venetia. It has 

 only been found once in Sicily. Bonaparte at first believed this 

 species to be confined to Sardinia, but he afterwards corrects the 

 error, and I doubt if it has ever been found there." 



Doderlein ("Avifauna del Modenese e della Sicilia") says of this 

 bird: — "It arrives along the coast of Dalmatia towards the middle of 

 April, and it fixes itself chiefly in the wooded country, and in cul- 

 tivated grounds and cornfields. Early in May it begins to construct 

 its nest, which it generally makes in the low weeds which cover the 

 trunks of trees, or else it is attached close to the ground to corn 

 stems. It is intertwined with straw, and small roots of the Agnus 

 castus. It is of an ovoid flask form, and it lays four or five ashy 

 white eggs, covered with brown spots, which I think occurs twice in 

 the year. During incubation, the male habitually perches above 

 among the trees, by preference on the summit of the cherry-tree, from 

 which it repeatedly emits a strong, vibrating, monotonous song, which 

 terminates in a broken cadence, and which may be nearly expressed 



VOL. III. T 



