58 RUSTIC BUNTING. 



M. Crespon, informs tis that it is in its disposition 

 lively and gay, that its cry resembles that of its 

 congeners, c zir-zir,' and that its song, which it kept 

 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 Heed 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 

 white 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; flanks with long 

 spots of the same colour; under tail coverts white, with 

 some brownish spots; large superciliary band of pure 

 white, 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." 



