CIRL BUNTING. 717 
CIRL BUNTING. 
Emperiza crrtus, Linn. 
Pl. XIL, figs. 11, 12. 
Geogr. distr.—Central and Southern Europe; eastward to Asia 
Minor ; constant, but local, in Great Britain. 
Food.—Insects, especially grasshoppers, grass seeds, oats, and 
berries. 
Nest.—Tolerably compact, but with « loose outer wall of coarse 
grass, rough straws, vegetable fibre, &c.; within this a mass of inter- 
woven fibrous roots, a few fine bents, and a good lining of black 
horse-hair. 
Position of nest.—Near the ground, in furze, bramble, or low 
bushes. 
Number of eggs.—4-5. 
Time of nidification—V-V1I; May. 
I first took the nest of this bird—containing, however, 
only three eggs—on the 5th June, 1877, at Iwade (near 
Sheppy) in Kent; the bird was sitting, and 1 almost 
stepped upon her; the nest was in a low furze bush tangled 
with a Blackberry vine, and growing in a rough bit of scrub 
in a country lane. Two of these eggs are figured on my 
plate ; compared with those of the Yellow Bunting, the 
eges of H. ctrlus are, as a rule, shorter, broader, whiter, 
less marked with scribbled lines, and more so with black 
spots and splashes. 
According to Col. Montagu, whose description of the 
nest seems to have been handed down from one oologist to 
another, a little moss is intermixed with the other materials. 
Mr. Seebohm also describes a little in the lining of one in his 
collection ; no doubt this is sometimes the case, just as it is 
absent from some nests of the Greenfinch, but hitherto I have 
not seen it. 
The Cirl Bunting probably breeds every year in Kent, but 
not in great numbers; I have once or twice noticed the egg 
in small private collections, and have myself taken it about 
three times in twelve years; it is recorded as having bred 
in all the southern counties from Cornwall to Sussex, in 
Surrey, Middlesex, Hereford, Buckingham, Berkshire, 
Wiltshire, Gloucester, Worcester, and Warwick; it may 
always be known from the Yellow Bunting by its black 
throat; its song somewhat resembles that of the Lesser 
Whitethroat. 
