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YELLOW-WINGED BUNTING. 
Emberiza passerina, Wils. 
PLATE CLXIL— Male. 
This is another of those remarkable species which pass unobserved from 
the Mexican dominions and some of the West India Islands, to the middle 
portions of our Atlantic States. From Maryland to Maine it is found in 
considerable numbers, and is not uncommon in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
New York, and Connecticut. In all the States it prefers the neighbourhood 
of the coast and a light sandy soil. It arrives in the latter districts about 
the 10th of May, and throws itself into the open new-ploughed fields, and 
those covered with the valuable red clover. It is never found in the wood- 
lands. Its food consists of such insects and larvae as are found on the 
ground, together with the seeds of grasses and other plants. 
Its flight is low, short, and performed by a kind of constant tremor of 
the wings, resembling that of a young bird. It alights on the tops of low 
bushes, fence-rails, and tall grasses, to sing its unmusical ditty, composed 
of a few notes weakly enunciated at intervals, but sufficing to manifest its 
attachment to its mate. Almost unregarded, it raises two broods in the 
season, perhaps three when it has chosen the warmer sandy soils in the 
vicinity of the sea, where it is evidently more abundant than in the interior 
of the country. 
The nest of the Yellow-winged Sparrow is as simple as its owner is 
innocent and gentle. It is placed on the ground, and is formed of light 
dry grasses, with a scanty lining of withered fibrous roots and horse hair. 
The female deposits her first egg about the 20th of May. The eggs are 
four or five, of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots. The young 
follow their parents on the ground for a short time, after which they sepa- 
rate and search for food singly. This species, indeed, never congregates, 
as almost all others of its tribe do, before they depart from us, but the in- 
dividuals seem to move off in a sulky mood, and in so concealed a way, 
that their winter quarters are yet unknown. 
The appearance of this humble species on the shores of the Columbia 
river renders its geographical distribution as difficult of comprehension as 
that of some other species, which, like it, discard as it were extensive tracts, 
and appear in distant regions for a season. Thus some of this species, on 
