YELLOW BUNTING. 493 
thence to the shores of the Mediterranean, but not on the 
islands, or at most but very rarely. 
I have ventured to restore to this bird what I believe to 
have been its first English name, Yellow Ammer, although 
it appears to have been printed Yellow Ham, and Yellow 
Hammer, from the days of Dr. Wm. Turner and Merrett 
to the present time. The word Ammer is a well-known 
German term for Bunting in very common use ; thus Bech- 
stem employs the names Schnee-ammer, Grau-ammer, 
Rohr-ammer, Garten-ammer, and Gold-ammer, for our 
Snow Bunting, Corn Bunting, Reed Bunting, Ortolan, or 
Garden Bunting, and Yellow Bunting. | Prefixing the 
letter H to the word appears to be unnecessary, and even 
erroneous, as suggesting a notion which has no reference to 
any known habit or quality in the bird. 
The adult male in summer has the beak of a bluish horn 
colour; the palatal knob less conspicuous than in the 
Common Bunting; the irides dark brown; the head, 
cheeks, ear-coverts, and nape of the neck, bright lemon- 
yellow, varied with a few dusky black patches, that are 
most conspicuous at the boundary of the ear-coverts; the 
upper part of the back and wings reddish brown, tinged 
with yellow, each feather having a dark brown patch at its 
centre ; the wing-primaries dusky black, with narrow ex- 
ternal edges of bright yellow: the secondaries, tertials, and 
both sets of wing-coverts, dusky black, broadly margined 
with rich chestnut brown; upper tail-coverts reddish chest- 
nut, edged with yellow; the central pair of tail-feathers 
shorter than the others, and dusky black, edged with chest- 
nut, and tinged with yellow; the next five feathers on 
each side dusky black ; the two outer ones on each side 
having a broad patch of white on the inner web ; the form 
of the tail slightly forked; the chin, throat, breast, and 
