76 BRITISH BIRDS’ EGGS. 
YELLOW BUNTING. 
EMBERIZA CITRINELLA, Linn. 
Pl. XIL., figs. 3-10; and Pl. XXXVIL,, fig. 10. 
Geogr. distr.— Western Palearctic Region ; scarce in S. W. Europe 
occurs everywhere in Great Britain. 
Food.—Insects, seeds, corn, berries, fruits. 
Nest.—Loosely constructed, sometimes less so than usual; formed 
of an outer lacing of coarse straws, withered grasses, sometimes a few 
twigs, and rarely an edging of withered chestnut-leaves ; internally of 
fine withered grass bents, and a sprinkling of rootlets with a few hairs 
in the inner lining. 
Position of nest.—Usually low down, less frequently at four to five 
feet from the ground: in hedges, bushes, low scrub; in holes in 
grassy banks by the roadside, or banks of gravel and chalk-pits. 
Number of eggs.—4-5. 
Time of nidification.—IV-VIII; May. 
Hewitson mentions moss as a component part of the nest 
of this bird; I have examined every nest that I have come 
across for some years past, but have never yet discovered a 
particle of moss in any of them ; I do not believe that the 
Buntings, as a rule, are partial to that material. 
In the ‘ Zoologist’ for December, 1888, I have noted a 
somewhat aberrant nest, “from which the coarse edging 
was entirely absent,” and which I found with three fresh 
eggs, upon which the hen was sitting, at Box Hill, on the 
12th August, 1882: eggs have been found as late as 
September. 
The Yellow Hammer (or Bunting) is a very abundant 
species, and in Kent one meets with it in every ramble; 
its brilliant colouring, unsurpassed by that of a canary, 
and its funny little never-varying song, make it a general 
favourite; in partially-cleared waste ground where there is 
short scrub of about a year’s growth, its nest abounds, and 
the bird, sitting close until one is almost upon it, and 
then flying off with no little bustle, constantly calls one’s 
attention to the existence of a nest where least expected; 
it is, however, so conspicuous an object that there is 
rarely any difficulty in discovering it. 
If the nest of this species is taken, the bird will some- 
times continue to lay in the same spot without forming 
another: this accounts for the Yellow Hammer having 
been seen sitting upon eggs laid on the bare ground, or, as 
I have seen, upon a mere platform of knotted ivy branches 
in a hedge. 
