186 



Male. Head grey, very strongly tinged with greenish yellow ; a ring of feathers round the eye, lores, and 

 throat pale citron-yellow ; back fulvous brown, with dark stripes down the centre of the feathers ; rump 

 rather inclining to yellowish brown, unspotted ; wing-coverts greyish brown, the greater ones edged 

 with fulvous white, forming an indistinct double alar bar ; quills brown, the primaries externally edged 

 with yellowish, the secondaries broadly edged with rufous, shading into fulvous on the margin of the 

 feather ; tail dark brown, the two central feathers edged with fulvous, the two outer rectrices white for 

 the apical half of the inner web ; sides of the neck and fore part of the chest greenish, the latter strongly 

 tinged with yellow ; rest of the under surface of the body tawny, deeper on the lower part of the chest ; 

 the under wing-coverts whitish, tinged with yellow, and slightly mottled with brown along the edge of 

 the wing; bill dark flesh-coloured, rather darker above than below; iris brown; legs pale fleshy red. 

 Total length 6 - 5 inches, culmen 05, wing 3'6, tail 2'9, tarsus 0'75. 



Obs. A certain amount of variation exists in the shade of colour on the head and breast of the male Ortolan 

 Bunting, this part being much more grey in some birds than in others. 



Female. Very similar to the male, but paler in colour, and having the plumage duller and more brown, and 

 differing especially in having the breast and flanks more or less distinctly striped with brown ; there is 

 also no tinge of olive-green on the chest. Total length 6'2 inches, culmen 05, wing 33, tail 2"7, 

 tarsus 075. 



Obs. Another female, in Lord Lilford's collection, is richer in colour than the one above mentioned, 

 having the throat brighter lemon-yellow, and the breast very pale tawny ; the stripes on the chest are 

 very distinct. One bird in Lord Lilford's collection, obtained by himself in Spain, and another shot by 

 Mr. Robson in Asia Minor, scarcely differ at all from the male, and could not be distinguished, except 

 by the slightly paler coloration. From this it would appear that the female, when adult, exactly resem- 

 bles the male, rather an anomalous fact among Buntings. 



Young Female. Above greyish brown, some of the feathers slightly edged with fulvous, everywhere streaked 

 with broad dark brown median lines, fainter and less distinct on the rump ; wings and tail as in the 

 male, but the rufous edgings to the secondaries not so bright; lores dirty brownish white; ring of 

 feathers round the eye and a distinct malar stripe yellowish white ; a very dark brown moustache on 

 each side of the throat ; sides of the neck greyish brown ; breast pale buff, more dusky on the upper 

 part ; the throat, breast, and flanks marked with narrow little brown stripes ; under wing-coverts 

 whitish, tinged with yellow and mottled with brown along the bend of the wing. Total length 

 6 inches, culmen (M-5, wing 3 - 3, tail 25, tarsus 075. 



Obs. Some young birds sent to us the other day, said to have been caught by a bird-catcher at Yarmouth, 

 are very remarkably coloured : unfortunately they were too young for us to distinguish the sex. They 

 are all three yellowish cinnamon on the breast, one of them being darker than the others, and they all 

 have the breast very distinctly striped. Above they are dark brown with very broad and distinct 

 edgings to the wing-coverts and secondary quills. There is a certain tinge of olive on the head, but 

 none on the breast ; the throat in one is pale yellowish white, in another lemon-yellcw, while the third 

 has this part ochre ; in all three examples the yellow on the under wing-coverts is very bright. 



Winter plumage. As in other Buntings, this is assumed by the donning of fulvous-edged feathers. 



The Ortolan Bunting is widely distributed over the whole of Europe, and is found in summer 

 from the high north of Sweden, breeding occasionally in Lapland. It extends into Morocco, but 



