468 
SKETCHES OF EUROPEAN ORNITHOLOGY. 
or third year. Mr. Gould has delineated, in this plate, figures of the adult male 
and female Puffin, in his wonted style of excellence. The specific epithet, 
favirostris , is obviously preferable to Arctica. 
Black-headed Bunting, Emberiza melanocephala ,—Bruant crocote of Tem- 
minck, Fringille crocote, Vieillot. —This bird inhabits the Southern provinces of 
the East of Europe; is very abundant in Dalmatia and the whole of the Levant ; 
common in Istria, the environs of Trieste, and the declivities of the hills which 
skirt the Adriatic. An agreeable songster. Feeds on the seed of wild plants, 
grain, and insects. Builds in low bushes; and lays four white eggs, sprinkled 
with minute specks of a light ash-colour. The bird is distinguished from the 
other species of Bunting by the deep-black colour of the summit of the head and 
region of the eyes and ears of the male. Hence the specific name. The female 
has all the superior parts of a reddish-ash colour. Nothing can exceed, in 
accuracy of outline, and splendour and softness of colouring, the two figures here 
delineated by Mr. Gould. 
Hooded Merganser, Mergus cucullatus. —One specimen only, either a young 
female, or, in Mr. Gould’s opinion, more probably an immature male, has yet 
been taken in the British islands. It was killed in Norfolk, in 1829; and 
first described by Selby in the Transactions of the Natural-History Society of 
Northumberland , and subsequently in the second volume of his Illustrations of 
British Ornithology ; to which, and to Richardson’s Fauna Americana Borealis, 
the reader is referred for a more particular description of the bird. The head of 
the male exhibits a crest composed of two separate rows of feathers radiating 
from each side, and easily divisible by the hand. That of the female is furnished 
with a “ small crest of slight hair-like feathers, of a dull ferrugineous brown.” 
This bird— le Harle cowronne of Buffon, but not described by Temminck —is a 
native of the Northern regions of America and Europe ; and strikingly resembles, 
in its character and habits, the other species of the Mergus genus. The two 
figures, male and female, of Mr. Gould are executed with marvellous spirit and 
and fidelity. 
Bee-eater, Merops apiaster , Linn^us, — chrysocephalus , Latham, —Guepier 
Vulgaire, Fr. —Bienfresser, G.,—forms the subject of this exquisitely-coloured 
plate. It is the only European species of the genus; inhabits the Southern 
regions of Germany, Switzerland and France, Spain, Sicily, the Archipelago, and 
Turkey; and migrates, in Autumn, towards Egypt. It is merely an occasional 
visitant of the British islands. 
On the expediency of separating the Wheatear — Saxicola oenanthe of Bech- 
stein,— Traquet moteux, Fr. —Culbianco, It. —Grauriickiger Steinschmatzer, G. 
‘—from the two other British species with which it has been commonly associated, 
and transferring it, as Ray and Brisson have done, to the genus Fittaflora, we 
