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top branches of the olive-trees and twitter a long song from thence. It remains the whole 

 winter in our parts, and leaves from about the latter end of February to the middle of March. 

 Many pairs breed here. It does not seem to occur on the islands of the Archipelago, is rarer 

 in the Peloponnesus than in Eumelia, but I believe that it breeds there on the Taygetus and 

 Kyllene mountains." Dr. Kriiper has more recently procured it in Naxos. In Turkey, ac- 

 cording to Messrs. Elwes and Buckley, it is " common and resident." The late Mr. Strickland 

 found it near Smyrna, haunting the vicinity of streams. In Southern Russia Von Nordmann 

 gives it as "rare in the steppes, but much less so in the mountainous country in the southern 

 portion of the Crimea." In Palestine it was not met with by Canon Tristram. 



Mr. C. A. Wright observes in his list of birds of Malta and Gozo : — " I have what appears 

 to be a female of this species, taken on the 12th November 1862. Signor Schembri possesses a 

 male, which was captured on the 20th November 1839;" and later on he writes: — "I have 

 obtained another example, taken alive in 1863." His latest note is as follows : — " Since 1863 

 several examples have been taken; and on the 10th and 11th of November 1869 I picked up 

 two males in the market." In Northern Africa, Canon Tristram says : — " I have found this bird 

 occasionally in the open plains of K'sour and Oumache. It seems to be only of winter passage 

 in the Sahara." Mr. Osbert Salvin also observes, "I frequently saw the CM Bunting at Khifan 

 M'sakta and its neighbourhood. "We afterwards, in May, obtained nests." Mr. L. Taczanowski 

 writes us that " it is common in Algeria all over the coast and the slopes of the Atlas, but I never 

 met with it in the desert. It always frequents the wooded districts and the bushes, and, like the 

 Common Yellow Bunting, often comes to habitations to seek for food, and perches on the hedges. 

 It is, however, much wilder than that bird." 



Naumann states that it is migratory in Germany, leaving its northern habitat in November, 

 perhaps even much earlier, wintering far to the southward and returning in April. It frequents 

 the same kind of places as the Yellow Bunting, such as the bushy banks of streams, meadows, 

 and hedges, small groves in mountainous districts, in the neighbourhood of fields and gardens. 

 In many other respects the CM Bunting resembles the Yellow Bunting. It prefers to take up its 

 position in a high and open place, on the tops of trees ; but later in the season it is found lower 

 down, and likes to hide in the dense thickets. It hops a good deal on the ground, and is by no 

 means shy. When frightened up, it soon settles on the nearest low bush and shows little fear. 

 Also in its flight it resembles its near relative, and quarrels and snaps at it when none of its own 

 species are near with whom it can fall out : it is equally quarrelsome, and is at times as restless 

 as that bird. The voice and song are strictly Bunting-like. Bechstein expresses the call-note as 

 follows: — zi-zi-za-zirr. The song, he says, is similar to that of the Yellow Bunting, but less 

 melodious, and sounds as follows : — zis-zis-zis-gdr-gor-gor : the male sings incessantly, sitting on 

 an exposed twig or the top of a tree. These Buntings eat both insects and seeds — namely, the 

 cabbage caterpillars and other larvse of insects, small black coleoptera, grasshoppers, both ripe 

 and ripening grain, such as oats, wheat, barley, &c, all grass seeds, but only in case of need oily 

 seeds, such as turnip seed &c. We have taken the above account of the habits of the Cirl 

 Bunting entirely from Naumann's ' Birds of Germany,' as it is by far the most complete record of 

 its economy that has yet come under our notice. In England it is gregarious in winter, and may 



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