DICKCISSEL. 
299 
rarely display any hostility to the birds around them, or 
amongst each other. In August they become mute, and about 
the beginning of September depart for the South, wintering as 
well as breeding in Texas and other parts of Mexico, but are 
not seen in the Southern States at any period of the winter. 
Their food consists of seeds, eggs of insects, and gravel, and in 
the early part of summer they subsist much upon caterpillars 
and small coleopterous insects ; they are also among the many 
usual destroyers of the ruinous cankerworm. 
This species occurs regularly in southern New England, but is 
rather rare in Massachusetts, and is merely accidental farther to 
the northward. The only examples that have been met with in 
Canada were the few that Mr. William E. Saunders found breeding 
at Point Pelee in southern Ontario. 
Note. Townsend’s Bunting {Spiza townsendii') was placed 
on the “ Hypothetical List ” by the A. O. U. Committee. The type 
specimen taken by Mr. Townsend in Pennsylvania remains unique. 
The LaR-K Bunting {Calamospiza melanocorys') has been seen 
in Massachusetts, — the only instance of its occurrence east of the 
Great Plains. 
