54 
BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 
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, resembling 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 Yellow-hammer of Britain ( E . citrinella ;) like 
them, they are fond of mounting to the top of some half-grown 
tree, and there chiruping for half an hour at a time. In 
travelling through different parts of New York and Pennsyl- 
vania in spring and summer, wherever I came to level fields 
of deep grass, I have constantly heard these birds around me. 
In August they become mute ; and soon after, that is, towards 
the beginning of September, leave us altogether. 
The Black-throated Bunting is six inches and a half in 
length ; the upper part of the head is of a dusky greenish 
yellow ; neck, dark ash ; breast, inside shoulders of the wing, 
line over the eye, and at the lower angle of the bill, yellow ; 
chin, and space between the bill and eye, white ; throat, 
covered with a broad, oblong, somewhat heart-shaped patch of 
black, bordered on each side with white ; back, rump, and 
is farther represented in North America by Plectrophanes and Pipilo, and may 
he said to run into the Finches by means of the latter, and Mr Swainson’s 
genus, Zonotrichia. The principal variations are the want, or smallness, of the 
palatial knob, and the wideness of the upper mandible, which exceeds that of 
the lower, while the reverse is the case in the true birds. Vieillot, I believe, 
proposed Passerina for some birds, but included many that were not so nearly 
allied, and Bonaparte has proposed Spiza to receive them, and to stand as a 
subgenus of Fringilla. We think the form, colouring, and markings, joined 
with their song and habit, associates them much closer to Emberiza, and as 
such have at present retained them Ed. 
