166 BRITISH BIRDS. 



looked, we must assume that India is its only winter-quarters; but it is 

 possible that future explorations may prove that the European examples 

 of this species winter in Arabia. Further north and west in Europe it 

 appears to be only an accidental visitor. It has been occasionally met 

 with in the south of France, Germany, and Austria. In South Russia an 

 example has been recorded from Kiev. 1 noticed a fine male in the 

 museum at Archangel, said to have been shot in the neighbourhood; and 

 it has occurred several times on Heligoland. It has no ally with which it 

 can easily be confounded. 



As might be expected from the unusual line of migration taken by the 

 Black-headed Bunting, it is one of the latest birds of passage to reach its 

 breeding-grounds. In Greece and Asia Minor it does not arrive until the 

 end of April, amongst the last half-dozen summer migrants. As soon as 

 it comes nest-building commences; and during the last half of May its 

 eggs are so abundant in the olive- and vine-region of the Parnassus that 

 when I was there I had not time to blow more than half of the clutches 

 which I found or saw. One reason may perhaps have been that the nest of 

 this bird was the easiest of all nests to find. The males were so extremely 

 handsome and so very conspicuous that whilst it may perhaps be scarcely 

 correct to say that no other species of bird was so common, certainly no 

 other appeared to be so. In the pine-region, from four to six thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea, they were, however, very rare. As you 

 look down from the ruins of the temple of Apollo at Castri, the ancient 

 Delphi, over the forest of olives which stretches away beyond Chrisso 

 down to Itea on the shores of the Gulf of Lepanto, the grey trees look 

 like a dense mass of wood impenetrable to the hot sunshine; but when 

 you are strolling in the forest itself, down in the plain, you find that each 

 tree is isolated, and that endless vineyards, and now and then a corn- 

 field, intervene. Sometimes the valley is bounded by a cliflF, the home of 

 the Rock-Sparrow and the Dalmatian Nuthatch and where Vultures and 

 Eagles breed; but more often the plain joins a steep rocky slope, where 

 the olives are smaller and more scattered, and where clematis and white 

 and pink roses half conceal the stony ground, and dwarf oleanders, pome- 

 granates, figs, almonds, and other shrubs compose a half-wild landscape, 

 the only sign of cultivation being a vine-terrace here and there. This 

 seems to be the paradise of the Black -headed Bunting ; and it is not 

 an uncommon thing to see three or four males perched conspicuously on 

 the top of as many isolated trees, singing in rivalry. When disturbed it 

 seldom flies far, but drops down from its perch, and after a short flight, 

 low and undulating, rises up again to the nearest tree-top, on which it is 

 so anxious to perch that its legs may be seen extended for the purpose long 

 before the desired haven is reached. In spite of what has been written to 

 the contrary, I cannot but consider this bird a typical Bunting in its habits. 



