66 



LITTLE BUNTING. 



forms which inhabit the northern parts of Russia and 

 Eastern Siberia; and it will also close my list of this 

 interesting genus. It lives and breeds in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Archangel, and has been taken frequently, 

 according to Blasius, in Central Europe. The specimen 

 from which Schlegel drew his lengthened description 

 in the Revue Critique, was captured in the neighbour- 

 hood of Leyden, on the 18th. of November, 1842. It 

 is included by Professor Blasius and Herr Gatke 

 among the birds found in Heligoland. It is- said by 

 Pallas to be very common in the Daouria, and is re- 

 ported by Mr. P. Swinhoe, as occurring in occasional 

 flocks in Amoy (China) during the winter.— (Ibis, vol. 

 ii, p. 61.) 



It is hardly necessary to enter into any discussion about 

 the specific identity of this bird, after the very clear 

 and convincing remarks of Professor Blasius, which I 

 published in the notice of E. rustica. M. De Selys- 

 Longchamps expressed a doubt, in a letter to Degland, 

 about the identity of Schlegel's specimen with the bird 

 described by Pallas, and referred it rather to the female 

 of E. fucata. Upon this Degland remarks : — "Having 

 seen in the museum of Leyden, the Emberiza pusitta 

 of M. Schlegel, I cannot, with my distinguished friend, 

 refer it to E. fucata; it has not the same kind of 

 beak. This organ, instead of being convex above, and 

 a little bent, is straight and awl-shaped, pointed, and 

 slightly reversed at its tip. Its plumage is decidedly 

 different." 



Bonaparte, in his "Conspectus of European Birds," 

 says of this species: — "It is a good species of Siberia, 

 which has been taken accidentally even in Italy; that 

 of Schlegel is the true one, and neither of the two 

 figures in my Italian fauna ought to be referred to it." 



