60 
BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 
neatly woven in a circular form, and is partly imbedded in the soil, and 
sheltered or concealed by a tuft of herbage. The eggs, usually five, are six 
and a half eighths in length, four and three-fourths in breadth, of a sullied 
white, generally sprinkled with faint touches of different tints of umber. In 
Pennsylvania, it seldom rears more than one brood in the season ; but in the 
Texas, I have reason to believe that it raises two. 
The flight of this bird, when it has settled in a place, is usually of short 
extent. The male, while passing to and from the nest, exhibits a quivering 
motion of the wings. The female seldom shows this, unless when her 
property is in danger from intruders. While travelling, which they always 
do by day, they pass high over the trees, in flocks of thirty or forty, which 
suddenly alight at the approach of night, and throw themselves into the 
most thickly-leaved trees, where they repose until dawn. I have surprised 
them in such stations both in Kentucky and in Louisiana, and on shooting 
into the place to which they have betaken themselves, although I could not 
see them, have procured several at one discharge; which proved in one 
instance to be males, and in the other females, thus shewing that the sexes 
travel separately. On such occasions, the survivors would sally forth, make 
a few rapid evolutions, and alight on the same tree. 
In spring, I have found them, on two or three occasions, near Natchez, in 
the State of Mississippi, in meadows, in company with Bob-o-links, 
Dolichonyx oryzivora. On the ground they leap or hop, but never walk. 
Their flesh is good, especially that of the young birds. 
Breeds abundantly in Texas and all the Western Prairies ; less so from 
Virginia to Massachusetts. Rare in Ohio and Kentucky. Migratory. 
Black-throated Bunting, Ember iza Americana , Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. i. p. 411. 
Fringilla Americana, Bonap. Syn., p. 107. 
Black-tiiroated Bunting, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 461. 
Black-throated Bunting, Emberiza Americana , Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 579. 
Bill very stout ; tail-feathers acute. Male with the upper part of the head, 
the cheeks, and the hind neck dark ash-grey, faintly streaked with dusky ; 
loral space whitish, a band over the eye, and a patch below the cheek, 
yellow ; the fore part of the back greyisli-brown, with longitudinal streaks 
of brownish-black, the hind part brownish-grey ; the smaller wing-coverts 
bright chestnut ; chin white, throat black ; the lower neck and part of the 
breast, yellow, the rest of the breast and abdomen white. Female similar 
to the male, but paler, and without the black patch on the throat. 
Male, 64, 10f. 
In an adult male, the roof of the mouth has anteriorly three longitudinal 
