GENUS 36. EMBERIZA. BUNTING. 
BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 
SPECIES 1. E. miERICANA. 
[Plate III. — Fig. 2.] 
Calandra pratensis,the May Bird, Bartram, 2?- 291. — ^rct. Zool. 
228. — Emberiza Americana, Ind. Orn. p. 411, 42. — Peale’s 
Museum, A* j. 5952.* 
Of this bird I have but little to say. They arrive in Penn- 
sylvania, from the south, about the middle of May; abound in 
the neighbourhood of Philadelphia; and seem to prefer level 
fields, covered with rye-grass, timothy, or clover, where they 
build their nest, fixing it in the ground, and forming it of fine 
dried grass. The female lays five white eggs, sprinkled with 
specks and lines of black. Like most part of their genus, they 
are nowise celebrated for musical powers. Their whole song 
consists of five notes, or, more properly, of two notes; the first 
repeated twice and slowly, the second thrice, and rapidly, re- 
sembling chip, chip, che che che. Of this ditty, such as it is, 
they are by no means parsimonious, for, from their first arrival, 
for the space of two or three months, every level field of grain 
or grass is perpetually serenaded with chip, chip, che che che. 
In their shape and manners they very much resemble the Yel- 
low-Hammer of Britain {E. citrinella); like them they are 
fond of mounting to the top of some half-grown tree, and there 
chirrupping for half an hour at a time. In travelling through 
different parts of New York and Pennsylvania, in spring and 
summer, wherever I came to level fields of deep grass, I have 
* We add the following synonymes : — Emberiza Americana, Gmei. Syst. 1, 
p. 872. — Lath. Syn, 2, p, 197, pi. 44. Fringillaflaricollis, Gmf.l. Syst. i, 926. 
