669 
observed in the Vicinity of Wei Hui Wei . 
In the summer months the birds are always scattered over 
the countryside in pairs, and shew no tendency to become 
gregarious even at the autumn migration. 
In habits this species seems to much resemble our Yellow 
Buntings [E. citrinella) ; the male has the same habit of 
sitting on the top of a small bush and repeating, ad nauseam, 
his plaintive little song, which, as Bickett very truly says, 
closely resembles that of our Emberiza citrinella , without 
the final note. 
The breeding-season commences in May, and the nest is 
placed, in Wei Hai Wei, under a tuft of grass beneath a 
small rock or at the foot of a bush or little tree. The long 
grass which always clothes the graves in a Chinese cemetery 
is a favourite situation. As a rule, the nests are lined 
wdth horse-hair alone or with a mixture of horse-hair and 
fine grasses. 
In Fokien Bickett and La Touche found this species 
nesting in small trees, a few feet from the ground, a 
situation which, so far as is known, it never selects in 
Shantung. 
The eggs vary from three to six in number, but four or 
five form the usual clutch. 
The earliest date for fresh eggs is May 13th and the latest 
June 8th, but the birds often sit much later than this, for 
on July 24th, 1907, a cock bird was noticed singing, in the 
manner which indicates a hen sitting somewhere in the 
vicinity, and, no doubt, Bickett is right in supposing this 
species to be double-brooded. 
The eggs have been described by Mr. La Touche (‘ Ibis/ 
1906, p. 633), but as they present considerable variation, the 
following remarks upon them may not be out of place :— 
Almost all the eggs have a creamy ground-colour, inclining 
in some specimens to a purplish brown, but there occur a 
few in which the ground-colour is clear bluish white, and of 
such only three were obtained. The eggs of a clutch some¬ 
times vary inter se, and I obtained one of three in which two 
are normal and one is of the bluish-white variety. The 
wreath of hair-like sepia-coloured markings mentioned by 
