302 Birds. 



make this statement, to vindicate the character of Mr. Knapp, whose 

 work I have ever held in high esteem. In the Lothians, and 1 believe 

 throughout Scotland, grain crops are invariably bound into sheaves. 

 With us the sickle is almost universally used, and with a little care on 

 the part of the reaper, few heads are thrown into the end of the sheaf. 

 After the breeding season is over the buntings keep together, in small 

 parties, till the following spring. 



Tlie Yellow Hammer or Yellow Bunting. With us, the yellow 

 bunting is essentially the bird of the cultivated farm. Ha is never 

 seen on our wild moors, and the waving woods have no charm for 

 him ; no other bird can dispute his claim to the title. Like our other 

 little granivorous birds they associate in flocks, to search the stubbles, 

 and when these fail they adjourn to the onsteads, helping themselves 

 to grain and seeds wherever they can be found. At oat-seed time 

 they may again be seen in the fields, and, along with other birds, 

 claim the uncovered grains as their lawful prize. They commence 

 their monotonous song about the middle of February ; they and the 

 chaffinches are our chief songsters during the latter snow-storms ; the 

 former do not cease till the second week in August, the last of all are 

 the granivorous species, the corn bunting perhaps excepted. Even 

 after they have dispersed to their several breeding-places, many indivi- 

 duals may be daily seen about the onstead, feeding on grain and small 

 seeds, but at this season they chiefly subsist on insects, particularly 

 Coleoptera ; their young ones are largely supplied with crane-flies, 

 (Tipulidae). When assembled in considerable bands, before the com- 

 mencement of harvest, they often injure fields of oats and wheat to 

 a considerable extent, confining their depredations to the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the hedge-row. In reference to their winter depre- 

 dations on stacks, Mr. Wood, in his ' British Song-Birds,' page 300, 

 says, " they (the yellow buntings) can obtain the object of their 

 search from the very heart of the stack, by pulling out the long straws 

 one by one." From this we must infer that the Staff'ordshire stacks 

 are very small, and that the same slovenly style of agriculture prevails 

 there as in Gloucestershire ; but in our stacks the sheaves are always 

 laid horizontally, or very nearly so, in concentric circles, except a 

 few in the centre, on the ground, and on the top to finish off" the 

 structure, which soon becomes so firm that it requires a stout pull to 

 draw" out a single straw, and the chances are always ten to one that 

 not a single grain is left by the friction on the spike or panicle, as 

 the case may be. 



