Birds. 303 



The Reed Sparrow or Reed Bunting. The reed bunting is not 

 very common with us, but I have observed the good service which it 

 does by destroying insects and small seeds. In autumn it will some- 

 times collect in flocks, and attack our outfields for a short time. Most 

 of them migrate from Scotland in October, returning in March, but 

 now and then a straggler will pass the whole season in our fields and 

 stack-yards. 



The Snowjlake or Snow Bunting. The snow bunting is one of our 

 winter visitants, arriving in October and departing in March. It 

 haunts the uplands, as well as the cultivated grounds of the interior, 

 but is most abundant on the sea-coast farms, gleaning in the stubbles 

 for grain, seeds and insects. During severe weather it haunts their 

 stack-yards, and in the interior it removes to the sea-coast. 



The Skylark. This farm is about five miles fi-om the sea, as the 

 crow flies, and its elevation may vary from two hundred to two hun- 

 dred and forty feet. During the last five years I have regularly ob- 

 served our skylarks depart in December, and return about the begin- 

 ning of February ; last season a few stragglers remained behind the 

 rest. I believe they proceed to the sea-coast farms, but of this I can- 

 not speak positively, and am also unable to estimate their relative 

 abundance there, during the dead season. Shortly after ther arrival 

 they commence their loud rejoicing songs, which are heard all the 

 season through, till hushed in sultry July ; they are then silent for a 

 season, till the end of September, when their happy strains again re- 

 sound through the still autumn day, far above the din of rural labour 

 and the Irish reaper's song. This bird is never seen clinging to the 

 standing corn, nor sitting on the shocks, but when his downward 

 flight is ended, in crouching attitude he partakes of the common feast 

 for all that lives. Snow-storms may drive him from his haunts, a 

 cowering suppliant for our bounty, modest and retiring, and content- 

 ing himself with such grains and seeds as lie scattered about the 

 stacks, but no sooner is the snow swept from the fields than he joy- 

 fully reasserts his independence. The early beetle is his delight : the 

 stirring of the soil, at almost all seasons, aflbrds him a supply of 

 choice insect food, of which he is so fond that I have seen individuals 

 hobbling amongst the young twigs, on the top of a close-pruned hedge, 

 intent on capturing crane-flies (Tipulidaj). Archibald Hepbukn. 

 Whittingham, East Lothian, June, 1843. 



(To be continued.) 



