58 
RUSTIC BUNTING. 
]M. Crespon, informs ns that it is in its disposition 
lively and gay, that its cry resembles that of its 
congeners, ‘zir-zir,’ and that its song, which it keiit 
up in 1838, from April to the end of October, had 
some resemblance to that of the Fauvette a tete noire. 
Its plumage became rather paler at the autumn moult. 
It was fed upon millet and hemp seed. 
In Badeker’s work I find the following notice: — “It 
is a north-dwelling bird, which comes plentifully into 
Siberia, and rarely into Lapland, and builds in bushes. 
Its nest is similar to that of the Reed Bunting. It 
lays five eggs, which are somewhat smaller than those 
of the Reed Bunting. The ground colour is brownish 
grey, with violet grey spots, veined, and streaked, and 
clouded with chesnut brown.” 
“The male in breeding plumage,” according to Deg- 
land, whose descriptions are always accurate, “has the 
top of the head black, with a longitudinal band of russet 
Avhite upon the median line, which terminates at the 
occiput in a small white spot; nape red russet; back, 
scapularies, and upper tail coverts, marked with black 
spots, which are edged with reddish russet; throat, front 
of neck, and middle and lower part of abdomen of a 
pure white; this colour is surrounded on the neck by 
a blackish streak, and a large collar of red russet, which 
embraces the upper part of the chest; fianks with long 
spots of the same colour; under tail coverts white, with 
some brownish s^Dots; large superciliary band of pure 
Avhite, which is lost in the white spot on the occiput; 
wings like the scapularies, and barred with white; tail 
brown black, with the two median quills bordered with 
russet, and the two outermost on each side marked in 
their length with a white band, the smallest on the 
second.” 
