REED BUNTING 
185 
way, with his black crown and cheeks, big black 
patch on the throat and breast, white collar and 
mouth-stripe, and back, wings and tail of con- 
spicuously mottled brown. He is fond of cling- 
ing to some tall osier stem or other marshy growth, 
and grating out his loud stammering call, more 
varied and broken than that of the Corn Bunting, 
and ending with a sort of sibilant or hissing note. 
The hen bird is marked less noticeably ; she 
is mainly mottled reddish-brown, with the black 
and white markings about the head and throat 
much more mixed and indistinct. Though resident 
in this country as a species, the Reed Bunting 
shifts its ground a good deal in the winter, and 
the black patches of the cock's plumage are then 
replaced by duller brown. As spring arrives many 
of the Reed Buntings leave the larger bodies of 
water and disperse into their breeding-places, where 
the new vegetation begins to provide them with 
cover for nesting. The first nests with eggs are 
to be found from about the middle of April ; they 
are built on or very close to the surface of the 
ground, or, in some cases, the mud or water, 
among dead reeds, or dead and green ones mixed, 
or the thick growth of meadow-sweet, pink 
valerian, sedge-grass, and numerous other kinds of 
rank, luxuriant vegetation which fills the osier-beds 
and overgrown stream-sides which the birds love 
