Few birds offer a more marked difference in the colouring of the sexes than the Reed-Bunting ; for the 
female has neither the black head nor the white collar which form such conspicuous features in the male, 
and which render him so ornamental an object amid the surrounding foliage. As spring draws near, this 
black hue of the head becomes more intense, and the white of the nuchal band more pure ; in winter, on 
the other hand, all the feathers are tipped with brown, the abrasion of which, in the following spring, leaves 
them jet black. 
The presence of the bird is at all times made manifest by its somewhat monotonous feeble ehirp ; but it 
occasionally utters a lengthened, agreeable, inward song, which I always listen to with pleasure, as I pre- 
sume do all who hear it. 
When the osiers have put forth their shoots, and the flags of the marsh grown suffieiently high to screen 
the nest from observation, the Reed-Bunting commenees the task of incubation, and generally places its 
cup-shaped structure on the ground, on the stub of a willow, or on the side of a bank. The nest is com- 
posed of fine grasses, with a slight lining of long hairs. The eggs are four or live in number, of a pale 
stone-colour, with large unfrequent blotches and seribblings, as it were, of deep umber-brown, bounded by a 
suffusion of a paler tint, appearing as if the markings had been laid on and the colour had slightly spread 
over the neighbouring surfaee. The eggs are in length about twelve sixteenths of an inch, and in breadth 
nine sixteenths, or rather less than those of the Yellow Hammer and Ortolan. The breeding-season lasts 
from the beginning of May until August, during which two broods are usually produced, the first during the 
early part of the first-mentioned month, the other in July. 
The young birds resemble the female, and do not aequire their black head until the spring following their 
first winter. 
The figures are of the natural size. The plant is the Carex riparia. 
