246 



found far distant from water, in stack-yards, and near barns, in company with Finches and other 

 Buntings. 



The nest of the Reed-Bunting is usually placed on the ground, amongst willows or osiers, 

 or in long grass or aquatic herbage, almost always in a damp locality, but seldom in a low bush 

 near the ground. Jardine says that he has frequently found it in a young spruce-fir, from one 

 to three yards above the ground ; and Mr. Collett informs me that he took a nest in Tromso in 

 a perfectly dry place, at the root of a tree in a group of tall birches. The nest is constructed of 

 grass and moss lined with finer grasses and a few hairs, or not unfrequently with the feathery 

 tops of reeds. The eggs are deposited from March to June or July ; and two, or perhaps three, 

 broods are reared in one season. The eggs, from four to five (occasionally even as many as 

 seven) in number, are purplish clay-coloured, marked with spots and streaks of a dark purplish 

 brown or black colour ; and those in my collection vary in size from f$ by f^ to ff by f^ inch. 

 Dr. E. Rey informs me that thirty-seven eggs in his collection average 19 - 3 by 14*3 millims., the 

 two largest measuring 22 by 15 and 19 - 5 by 15*5, and the two smallest 17*75 by 13-75 and 18 - 

 by 13*5 millimetres. 



Amongst peculiar varieties of the eggs of this species I may name one sent to me for 

 inspection by Mr. Cecil Smith, of Taunton, who informs me that all the eggs in the same nest 

 were similar, but that he only took this one and left the rest, which the old bird hatched out. 

 The egg in question is dull bluish white with very minute brownish markings, and one or two 

 irregular brown scratches at the larger end. 



The young birds are fed almost solely on insects of various kinds. Mr. Collett, who dis- 

 sected several obtained in Tromso, Norway, writes to me that " insects were chiefly found in the 

 stomachs and gullets of the nestlings, which was also the case with an old female, killed on that 

 island ; the brownish eggs (-J millim. in length) of a parasitic insect, seemingly difficult of 

 digestion, were found in large numbers in the stomach of this individual. These eggs are 

 found likewise in the stomachs of other species that devour the larvae of insects infesting birch- 

 woods." 



The variation in size, and especially in the form and size of the bill, in this species is 

 extremely perplexing; and it is with no little hesitation that I have at last decided to unite 

 all under the name of Emberiza schoeniclus ; but as the gradations between the large and 

 small specimens are so gradual and regular, I cannot do otherwise, especially as there is no 

 difference whatever in coloration and markings. My friend Mr. Seebohm, to whom I am 

 indebted for great assistance in writing the present article, agrees with me in giving specific 

 rank to Emberiza pyrrhuloides ; but in the present species he evades the difficulty by making the 

 large-billed form a subspecies, or, in other words, a species still under the process of differen- 

 tiation ; but having hitherto refused to follow this plan, I cannot now do so. This large-billed 

 form is found in Southern Europe from Spain to the far east of Europe, in Asia Minor, and in 

 Asia as far east as Japan, and is the Emberiza palustris of Savi and Emberiza intermedia of 

 Bonaparte, who states that this name was given by Michahelles ; but where this latter author 

 published it (if he ever did so) I have been quite unable to ascertain, It is somewhat remarkable 

 that, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the large-billed form alone, and not the small- 

 billed form, is found in Japan, where, likewise, a perfectly distinct species, Emberiza passerina, 



