WILLOW BUNTING. 167 



while the centre crest is lighter, and over the eye on both sides runs 

 a dark brown, sometimes more, sometimes less, intermixed with rust- 

 colour. In all the whitish streak over the eye is as pronounced as 

 Gould represents it. Finally, in both sexes the marking of the second 

 outermost tail feather is very variable, for sometimes there is a nar- 

 rower white stripe lengthwise on the inner border near the shaft, 

 from the point to a third part of the feather upwards, and sometimes 

 only the very first beginning of this stripe is apparent on the point 

 of the feather, and sometimes indeed it entirely disappears — differences 

 which may often be observed on the two sides of one and the same 

 individual. On some old males of Emberiza aureola, recently shot, I 

 found, in June and July, the iris dark brown, the upper part of the 

 beak horn brown, the under part flesh-coloured, the feet of a light 

 brown. 



"Emberiza aureola is indeed one of the most frequent species of 

 Bunting in the Amoorland, and especially inhabits the leafy woods 

 provided with a thick undergrowth, and also the extensive willow 

 plots on the islands of the Amoor. The last locality it seems par- 

 ticularly to affect, since Pallas also expressly says it is found on the 

 islands covered with willows on the Irtisch and other rivers of Siberia. 

 The earliest specimen in the year I shot on the 19th. (31st.) May, 

 1855, near the Chaselach mouth of the Lower Amoor. Yet it must 

 arrive much earlier at the mouth of the Amoor (proper), probably 

 even in the beginning of May, on the Stanowoj Mountains, in the 

 river districts of the Nuda, and on the southern coast of the Ochotsk 

 Sea, since Middendorff observed it there from the 10th. of May. On 

 the 3rd. (15th.) of June I flushed a pair from the grass in a leafy 

 wood on the Sea of Kidsi, evidently nesting, of which I shot the 

 male. Later in June and July, I have often observed and killed 

 Emberiza aureola, in the willow bushes of the islands on the Amoor; 

 thus at Kidsi, Dshai, at the Ussuri mouth, etc., etc. From the Upper 

 Amoor, Herr Maack has brought with him several specimens of the 

 date of 25th. and 26th. May (6th. and 7th. June) from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Albasin and of the mouth of the Oldoi." 



The male has the top of the head, back, and a collar round the 

 neck of a rich maroon, and the rump is of the same colour, though 

 more mottled; the wings are brown, shaded with longitudinal patches 

 of grey; the upper tail feathers are brown; cheeks deep black; throat 

 and chest canary yellow, being separated by a band forming a half- 

 circle of the same rich maroon which marks the top of the head; 

 abdomen and flanks light yellow; under tail coverts white; primaries 

 and secondaries the same uniform brown as the tail; tertials darker 



