232 



4 



around Chimkent and Tashkend ; and he adds that he shot specimens on the Ural river (where it 

 occurs regularly on passage) in September 1860. It does not occur in Persia or India; but in 

 Siberia it is not uncommon, though none of the travellers in that country have found its nest. 

 Von Middendorff says that he believes he saw one at Starzowo, seventeen versts from Jeneseisk, 

 in January, and expresses his surprise that it should winter so far north. In the Stanowoi 

 Mountains he first observed it on the 26th of April (O. S.) ; on the 3rd of May they were paired, 

 and on the 12th they appeared to be nesting. The male bird was seen on pines and larches, and 

 was easily recognizable from other Buntings by its rich, melodious song. Pallas observed it in 

 the Transbaikal region in March, and in Kamtschatka in May ; and Von Schrenck first met with it 

 in the spring of 1855, on the 23rd of April (5th of May, N. S.), in flocks, in the open conifer-woods, 

 near the Nikolaieffsk Post, on the Amoor. In the previous autumn he saw the first flocks on the 

 28th September, and observed one bird as late as the 12th (24th) October, when snow had already 

 fallen. Dr. G. Radde gives some interesting details respecting this Bunting, which I translate 

 as follows : — " Of all the Buntings E. rustica arrives the earliest in East Siberia ; but I have never 

 found it wintering. The first stragglers arrived on the Tarei-nor on 26th March. They fre- 

 quented vegetable-gardens and places sheltered from the wind. Up to the 12th April but few 

 were observed. In spite of the continuous north storm which raged on the 11th and 12th, and 

 the low temperature (on the 12th, at 6 a.m., 2'25° R.), the fatigued birds continued their journey, 

 but arrived so tired out that we could catch them or knock them down with stones. On exami- 

 nation, the stomachs of these fresh-arriving travellers were chiefly empty and loose, and I only 

 found in them a lot of small quartz stones — which is seldom observable in songsters during 

 migration ; on the other hand, they are found to such a degree in those of the Grallatores and 

 Natatores that the stomach appears quite full of them. Westward of these Mongolian much- 

 frequented migration-paths over the Dalai and Tarei-nor, E. rustica appears later, viz. in the first 

 weeks of April. When, on the 13th April 1859, I went on the post-road over the Baikal 

 Mountains to the middle of the Irkut, I found E. rustica and E. pithyornis in large flocks (forty 

 to fifty) on this road, even where it passed through the wildest forests. However, E. rustica 

 occurs here only on passage, and I never observed it on the Lake Baikal in summer. In the 

 Selenga valley I saw many large flocks on 5th April 1857 as I travelled from Selenginsk to 

 Kjachta. Here some of the males sang already. In the Bureja Mountains it does not breed. 

 During the autumn migration E. rustica, and chiefly young birds, visit the central Onon valley 

 from the beginning to the 24th September. After the severe snow-storm on the 24th September, 

 E. rustica had gone away entirely. In the Bureja Mountains this Bunting was observed on 

 27th September 1858, and lived in company with the Bullfinches, which were then migrating 

 past there." According to Dr. Dybowski, it is quite common in Dauria on the spring passage, 

 appearing about the middle of April and remaining until early in May. In the autumn it arrives 

 again in September and remains until about the 23rd of October. 



Pere David says that it -is abundant in Mongolia on passage ; but Colonel Prjevalsky does 

 not appear to have met with it in the localities visited by him. It occurs in Japan; and 

 Temminck and Schlegel, who give an excellent figure of it in the ' Fauna Japonica,' say that the 

 Dutch collectors brought back a good series from there. Captain Blakiston (Ibis, 1862, p. 328) 



