188 
EMBERIZID^E. 
INSESS ORES. 
CONIROSTRES. 
EMBERIZIDJE. 
YELLOW BUNTING. 
YELLOW-AMMER, YELLOW-YOWLEY, or GOLD SPINK. 
Emberiza CITRINELLA. 
PLATE XLVII., FIG. II. 
The Yellow Bunting is one of our most common 
birds, and its singularly marked eggs always form a 
large portion of the bird-nesting spoils which fill the 
string of the scliool-boy. Although subject to great va¬ 
riety, they are usually so characteristic of the species that 
it would not be easy to confound them with those of any 
other bird, except the rarer eggs of the cirl bunting. In 
form they are occasionally very long and oval, sometimes 
round as a marble. I have seen a single specimen of this 
egg so much suffused with colour that it might have been 
mistaken for that of the cuckoo. 
The nest is formed outwardly of straws, bits of moss, 
sticks sometimes, and coarse grass, finer towards the in¬ 
side, which is finished with roots and a few hairs. It 
may be found upon almost every briery hedge-dyke; it 
is most commonly placed upon the ground, but not un- 
frequently occupies the centre of a thick bush. 
Mr. Salmon has found the nest at the unusual height 
of seven feet above the ground, amongst the thick bushy 
branches of some broom; and once, very much to my 
surprise, whilst seeking for nests of blackbirds and 
thrushes, amongst the firs of a young plantation, I dis- 
