EMBEPvIZA PUSILLA, Pall 



(Small Bunting.) 



Mr. Gould calls this "one of the most ubiquitous Buntings in existence." 

 An example of this species was found alive at Brighton, Nov. 2, 1864, and 

 placed before me. Mr. Gould took it to the Zoological Society's Meeting, 

 Nov. 8, and figured it in his fine work the ' Birds of Great Britain.' A notice of 

 it appeared in a letter of mine to the ' Ibis,' 1865, new ser. vol. i. p. 113. No 

 second British specimen has been seen, as far as I know. The editor of ' Stray 

 Feathers,' vol. ii. no. 6, p. 497, says, " Lieut. Wardlaw Ramsay shot a female 

 of this species on the 28th March below M. de Roepstorff's house on Mount 

 Harriet. Davidson saw and noted it. Lord Walden confirms the identifi- 

 cation. It must now be included in the avifauna of the Bay of Bengal." 



FRINGILLA MONTIFRINGILLA. 



(Bramble-Finch.) 



A CURIOUS instance of gular melanism occurred in two cock Bramble-Finches 

 during the grand flight of Larks and other birds after the heavy snow, 

 Dec. 17, 1874, to which I drew attention in the 'Times,' Dec. 24, 1874. 

 The throat was quite black, with the exception that the brown tips of the 

 feathers, which would have come off in the spring, had not yet done so. 

 A cock with the ordinai-y throat is show^n in the illustration. A similar 

 case in a Quail (Coturnix dactylisonans) is also figured. It has not yet 

 been determined if this arises from age or abnormal variation. It is only 

 when masses of a species arrive that this kind of difference is observable. 



