BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 
61 
ridges, and two lateral grooves ; the palate descends obliquely, and at its 
anterior part has a distinct prominence of a softish texture, from which there 
passes backwards and outwards, a large soft ridge on each side of the nasal 
aperture, which is linear and papillate. The tongue is 5i twelfths long, 
narrow, deep, trigonal, deeply emarginate and papillate at the base, soft for 
half its length, convex and hard towards the end, which terminates with 
bristly points. The oesophagus, abed, is 24 inches 
long, dilated along the greater part of the neck into 
a kind of crop, b, 5 twelfths in diameter, lying on the 
right side along with the trachea. The proventriculus, 
c d, is not much enlarged. The stomach, e f is a strong 
gizzard, of a broad elliptical form, 7| twelfths in 
length, 61 twelfths in breadth. Its contents are small 
hard seeds, a few remains of insects, and some par- 
ticles of sand. The epithelium is very tough, longi- 
tudinally rugous, and of a dark reddish-brown colour. 
The intestine, f g h, is 8£ inches long, its greatest 
diameter 2 twelfths. The rectum, j k /, is 9 twelfths 
long ; the coeca ,j, extremely small, being If twelfths 
long and i twelfth in diameter. 
The trachea, which is 1 inch 10 twelfths long, is 
rather wide, flattened, of uniform diameter, measuring 
If inches across, the rings about 55, and ossified. The 
contractor muscles are of moderate strength ; the 
sterno-tracheal slender ; and there are four pairs of 
inferior laryngeal. The bronchi have about 15 half 
rings. 
In its habits, this bird closely resembles the Common or Corn Bunting of 
Europe, its flight and notes being almost the same. Like it, our bird alights 
on walls, fences, detached rocks, or eminences of any kind, where it is often 
seen even in the immediate neighbourhood of our cities. Indeed, I have 
found it in full song perched on the trees that ornament the squares of 
Washington city. In the form of its bill it also agrees with the Buntings, 
although that organ is proportionally longer and less attenuated toward the 
end. If, on the principle of minute division, it is not admitted into the 
genus Emberiza, it must at least occupy a place in its immediate proximity. 
The plants represented are the P/ialaris arundinacea and Antirrhinum 
linaria, both common in many parts of the United States, as well as in 
Europe ; the former growing in wet meadows and by the sides of rivers, 
the latter in fields and waste places, a troublesome weed, very difficult to 
be extirpated. 
Yol. III. 
10 
