128 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
CORN BUNTING. 
{Ember vza miliaria,^ 
Common Bunting, Bunting Lark. — The " com- 
mon " Bunting in this country is unmistakably the 
Yellow Hammer, so that Corn Bunting is the best 
name for this species, as it is generally found in 
parts of the country where wheat is extensively 
grown, and is rare, as a rule, in a grass district. It 
is a dull, ungainly bird in plumage, voice, and 
habits, and makes itself very noticeable, wherever 
it is present, by the way in which it posts itself on 
some bush, wall, fence, or other conspicuous perch, 
and utters at short intervals its scraping, stammer- 
ing cry. In many open corn-countries, or countries 
where corn-fields are interspersed with tracts of 
heath or down, the dull brown figure and un- 
musical cry of this Bunting are hardly once absent 
from ear or eye during a long day's walk, and then 
he seems well to deserve the specific name of 
" common." Telegraph wires are a favourite seat 
of his, and the well-known scraping note may often 
be heard in early summer-time, borne in through 
the open windows above the roar and rattle of the 
train, as we travel out of London by the Great 
Western railway through the Berkshire corn- 
country, between Slough and Swindon. The note 
