Yellowhammer or Yellow Bunting’.
Emberiza citrinella, Limi. Faun. Suec., p. 84.
■ir sylvestris, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl., p. 294.
-----------septentrionalis, Brehm, ib., p. 294.
Citrinella septentrionalis, Kaup, Naturi. Syst. p. 142.
T h e present beautiful bird is known throughout the greater portion of the British Islands by the name of
Yellowhammer, a term which Yarrell considered to be a corruption of Yellow Ammer, the word g ammer g
being a common and well-known German name for many of the Buntings; he has therefore called tins
species the Yellow Bunting or Yellow Ammer. The Scotch biographer of our native birds, Macgilhvray,
J so described it as the Yellow Bunting, and adds the following list of provincial names as applied to it S |
Yellowhammer, Yellow Yeldriug or Yoldring, Yellow Yowley, Yellow Yite, Yoldriog, or Yeldrock, Sk.te,
Devil’s bird Buidhein, Buidheag Bhuachair; while Thompson, of Ireland, mentions only the following:
Yellow Bunting, Yellow Ammer, and Yellow Yorlin. Of all these terms that of Yellow Bunt,ng ,s
undoubtedly the most correct; but Yellowhammer is the one by which it is generally knlSwn to the
school-, the herd-,.and the plough-boy. Like those sturdy sons of the soil, it is strictly a native of, and a
permanent residenfih, this country (for it never leaves us either in summer or winter), and is alike common
1 every district, from north to south and from east to west, from the low fluviatlle county of Lincolnshire
to the high peaks of Derbyshire, from the Lothians to the hills of Eossh.re. ■ ■ ■ ■ R B I
In the early mornings the Yellowhammer may be seen on the dew-hespangled sprays of the field-side, and
there while perched on some prominent twig, emits his singular ditty long before the vernal migrants
have arrived. As summer advances, no bird is more showy, nor is there one whose appearance is more
striking among the hedges which skirt the green lanes; the dense copp.ee and the thick wood lie shuns; ,t
is among the wide shaws in low valleys, and the bushes which grow on commons and wastes, ha he
Yellowhammer finds a home congenial to his tastes. It has now paired and the couples only wait for the
thorn-bush to be covered with leaves, and the ditch-side overgrown with grasses and herbage, before they
commence their nests.
«■ Just by the wooden bridge a bird flew up
Seen by the cow-boy as he scrambled down
To reach the misty dewberry. Let us stoop
And seek its nest. The brook we need not dread,
’Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown,
As it sings harmless o’er its pebbly bed
Aye, here it is 1 Stuck dose beside the bank,
Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank
Its husk-seeds tall and high: ’tis rttddy planned
Of bleached stubbles and the withered fare
That last year’s harvest left upon the land,
Lined thinly with the horse's sable hair.
Five eggs, pen-scribbled o’er with ink their shells,
Resembling writing scrawls, which Fancy reads
As Nature’s poesy and pastoral spells:
They are the Yellowhammer’s ; and she dwells ^
Most poet-like ’mid brooks and flowery weeds.
. I I summer ,he Yellowhammer in associated with the Ruius finticmus from the period
During spring and s . d f ;, the well.known Blackberry; but when the spring is past
itself to the open fields and seeks its food on the ground, where
M — r ply r f seeds, small-shelled mollosks, &c. As winter approaches, it assembles ,n flocks,
it “nd! * ,P' e a VfrcCs and Sparrows around the outstanding ricks, and even ventures and mingles with Finches p ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ afford g w^ith hino wtheem p.r escpinricntgs
— B i t comes a change of diet; for insec* and their larvm are then eagerly devoureda
kind of food with which the Buntings also feed the..• offspnng ham t|,e differcnces ■
No „„e of our native birds “ " b e i n g c o in e d to the intensity or
respect are, however, too trivial to be regarded as spec.nc t b HR this part
riciness of its hues, and to moustache hounding the lower
; l rta e f o«mr! r ga l 'h a v e the head and cheeks suffused with dark brown, without a fa c e of the