BLACK-THROATED BUNTING. 
243 
some half-grown tree, and there chirruping 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 constantly heard these birds around me. In 
August they become mute ; and soon after, that is, 
towards the beginning of September, leave us alto- 
gether. 
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 tail, ferruginous, the 
first streaked with black ; wings, deep dusky, edged 
with a light clay colour; lesser coverts and whole 
shoulder of the wing, bright bay ; belly and vent, dull 
white ; bill, light blue, dusky above, strong and power- 
ful for breaking seeds; legs and feet, brown; iris of 
the eye, hazel. The female differs from the male in 
having little or no black on the breast, nor streak of 
yellow over the eye ; beneath the eye she has a dusky 
streak, running in the direction of the jaw. In all 
those I opened, the stomach was filled with various 
seeds, gravel, eggs of insects, and sometimes a slimy 
kind of earth or clay. 
This bird has been figured by Latham, Pennant, and 
several others. The former speaks of a bird which he 
thinks is either the same, or nearly resembling it, that 
resides in summer in the country about Hudson’s Bay, 
and is often seen associating in flights with the geese ; * 
this habit, however, makes me suspect that it must be 
a different species ; for while with us here the black- 
throated bunting is never gregarious ; but is almost 
always seen singly, or in pairs, or at most, the indivi- 
duals of one family together. 
* Latham, Synopsis , Supplement , p. 158. 
