224 



Adult Female in summer (Krasnojarsk) . Differs from the male in being much duller in colour and lacking 

 the rich chestnut tints in the plumage ; the crown is dark reddish brown striped with black, there is 

 less black on the sides of the head, and the lores are not black but brownish white, and the breast-band 

 is dull pale foxy red and not chestnut. 



In the winter plumage the adult male has the feathers margined with ashy grey, which obscures the 

 chestnut on the breast and upper parts, especially on the crown, and the sides of the neck and throat 

 are bluish grey. The female in winter differs also in having the feathers margined, more broadly 

 than in the male, with sandy ash, the breast-band being entirely hidden. 



Dr. Sharpe states (Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xii. p. 543) that this species has a tiny black spot at the base of the 

 chin, and that E. castaneiceps differs in being smaller and in lacking this spot ; but I find no black spot 

 in any of the specimens of E. cioides in my collection. Dr. Taczanowski separates E. castaneiceps from 

 E. cioides, but does not give the absence of the black spot as a distinctive character, nor does he say 

 that E. cioides has this spot, but gives the distinctive characters of E. castaneiceps as follows : — Smaller 

 in size, and having the pectoral band reddish isabeliine and not chestnut, the female lacking the black 

 malar stripe. Having now had an opportunity of examining six specimens from China, I am able 

 to say that I do not consider the Chinese to be specifically separable from the Siberian bird. 



Generally distributed from Western Siberia and Turkestan to Eastern Siberia, Corea, Mantchuria, 

 Mongolia, and China, the present species of Bunting has been met with as a straggler as far west 

 as the British Isles, as recorded by Canon Tristram, who writes (Ibis, 1889, p. 293) as follows : — 

 " Our member, Mr. R W. Chase, of Birmingham, has lately obtained at Flamborough a specimen 

 of this species. This specimen is stated to have been taken there in October 1887, and to have 

 been mounted from the flesh by Matthew Bailey, who did not know the bird, and was quite 

 ignorant of the interest attaching to it. The species has considerable seasonal variation, and 

 this specimen agrees exactly with one in my own collection obtained near Lake Baikal in the 

 month of October. So far, therefore, the evidence of its occurrence at Flamborough seems 

 satisfactory. But it is curious that the bird has never been met with before in Europe, not even 

 in that resort of unwonted stragglers, Heligoland." 



Mr. Chase informs me that he found on making inquiries that the above-named date of 

 capture is an error, and that the bird was caught by William Gibbon, fisherman, at Flamborough, 

 south of the headland, in November 1886. These particulars were communicated to Mr. Chase 

 by Matthew Bailey. The correction in date was given in the 'Yorkshire Naturalist,' 1889, 

 p. 356. 



I do not find any record, beyond the above, of its occurrence west of the Ural range ; but 

 Taczanowski states that it occurs in Western Siberia ; Mr. Seebohm received examples, both in 

 breeding-plumage and in autumnal dress, from Krasnojarsk ; and Pallas found it in the mountains 

 of the Jenesei and throughout Dauria, and says that S teller met with it from the Augara and 

 Lena to Kamschatka ; but Dr. Dybowski did not find it in the last-named country. 



Middendorff obtained a single example at Udskoj-Ostrog on the 11th December; and Radde 

 remarks that it remains later in the autumn that any of the other Siberian Buntings, and that a 

 few remain there over winter. In Dauria it is, he says, not common ; he obtained it with 

 E. rustica on the island of the Central Onon early in September, and on the Central Amoor, 

 where it is not uncommon, late in March. On the 2nd May he found females breeding on the 



