46 BAY-WINGED BUNTING. 



and clover fields, perches on the tops of the fences, singing, 

 from the middle of April to the beginning of July, with a 

 clear and pleasant note, in which particular it far excels its 

 European relation. It is partially a bird of passage here, 

 some leaving us, and others remaining with us, during the 

 winter. In the month of March I observed them numerous 

 in the lower parts of Georgia, where, according to Mr Abbot, 

 they are only winter visitants. They frequent the middle of 

 fields more than hedges or thickets ; run along the ground 

 like a lark, which they also resemble in the great breadth of 

 their wings. They are timid birds, and rarely approach the 

 farmhouse. 



Their nest is built on the ground, in a grass or clover field, 

 and formed of old withered leaves and dry grass, and lined 

 with hair. The female lays four or five eggs, of a grayish 

 white. On the first week in May, I found one of their nests 

 with four young, from which circumstance I think it probable 

 that they raise two or more broods in the same season. 



This bird measures five inches and three quarters in length, 

 and ten inches and a half in extent ; the upper parts are 

 cinereous brown, mottled with deep brown or black ; lesser 

 wing-coverts, bright bay ; greater, black, edged with very pale 

 brown; wings, dusky, edged with brown; the exterior primary, 

 edged with white ; tail, sub-cuneiform, the outer feather white 

 on the exterior edge, and tipt with white ; the next, tipt and 

 edged for half an inch with the same ; the rest, dusky, edged 

 with pale brown ; bill, dark brown above, paler below ; round 

 the eye is a narrow circle of white ; upper part of the breast, 

 yellowish white, thickly streaked with pointed spots of black 

 that pass along the sides; belly and vent, white; legs and 

 feet, flesh-coloured ; third wing-feather from the body, nearly 

 as long as the tip of the wing when shut. 



I can perceive little or no difference between the colours 

 and markings of the male and female. 



