35 



TOWHE BUNTING. 

 EMBERIZA ERYTHROPTHALMA. 

 [Plate X.— Fig. 5.] 



Frmgilla erythropthalma, Linn. Syst. 318, 6. — Le Pinson de la Caroline^ Briss. Ofji. 

 Ill, p. 169, 44.— Buff. Ois. lY,p. 141.— Lath. II, p. 199, No, 43.— Catesb. Car. I, 

 PL 34.— Peale's Museum, No. 5970. 



THIS is a very common^ but humble and inoffensive species^ 

 frequenting close sheltered thickets, where it spends most of its 

 time in scratching up the leaves for worms, and for the larvse and 

 eggs of insects. It is far from being shy, frequently suffering a 

 person to walk round the bush or thicket where it is at work, with- 

 out betraying any marks of alarm ; and when disturbed, uttering 

 the notes Tow-he, repeatedly. At times the male mounts to the 

 top of a small tree, and chants his few simple notes for an hour at 

 a time. These are loud, not unmusical, something resembling 

 those of the Yellow-hammer of Britain, but more mellow, and more 

 varied. He is fond of thickets with a southern exposure, near 

 streams of water, and where there is plenty of dry leaves ; and is 

 found, generally, over the whole United States. He is not grega- 

 rious, and you seldom see more than two together. About the 

 middle or twentieth of April they arrive in Pennsylvania, and begin 

 building about the first week in May. The nest is fixed on the 

 ground among the dry leaves, near, and sometimes under, a thicket 

 of briars, and is large and substantial. The outside is formed of 

 leaves and pieces of grape-vine bark, and the inside of fine stalks 

 of dry grass, the cavity completely sunk beneath the surface of the 

 ground, and sometimes half covered above with dry grass or hay. 

 The eggs are usually five, of a pale flesh color, thickly marked 



