JGmMsECEit/âér M e t Mu.
EMBERIZA FUSILLA, ■ Waller. Intp.
Dwarf Bunting.
Emberiza pusilla, Pall. Reise, tom. iii. p. 697.
------------ sordida, Hodg. Jotirn. Asiat. Soc, Beng., vol. xiii. p . 958.
——■— oinops, subgen. Ocyris, Hodgs. Proc. of ZooL Soc., part xiiL 1845, p. 36.
Euspiza pusilla?, Blyth, Cat. of Birds in Mus. Asiat. Soc. Calcutta, p. 130.
Emberiza oinops, Gray, Cat, o f Spec, and Draw, of Mantra, and Birds pr. to Brit. Mu*, by B. H. Hodgson, Esq.,
p . 108.
Ocyris oinops, Hodgs. in Gray’s Zool. Misc., 1844, p. 84.
W it h reference to the occurrence of this Asiatic species in England I cannot, perhaps, do b e t t e r than
transcribe the account sent by George Dawson Rowley, Esq., of Brighton, to * The Ibis ’ for 1865 (p. 113) :—
“ On the 2nd of November, 1864,” says this gentleman, “ a boy brought to Mr. Swayslaud, the naturalist
of this place, a very small bird of an unknown species, which he had just caught outside the town.
Mr. Swaysland immediately sent for me ; and I carefully examined it alive to discover if possible any signs of
captivity ; hot the edges of the feathers and the top of the head were perfect, and above all there were no
square marks on the feet such as are caused by the perches of a cage. These indications being all
satisfactory, I concluded that we had a wild bird before us ; and a short investigation made it pretty clear
that the species was the Emberiza pusilla of Pallas.
“ I then wrote to Mr. Gould, who kindly undertook to exhibit it at the meeting of the Zoological Society
on November the 8th, and he has since drawn its portrait for bis magnificent book on British Birds.”
In compliance with Mr. Rowley’s wish I had the pleasure of submitting the specimen to the inspection of
the Fellows of the Zoological Society present at the date above mentioned ; and the opposite plate is an
exact fac-similé of the drawing to which he refers.
'We above comprises all that is known respecting the Emberiza pusilla as a member of onr avifauna ; of
in other parts of the world I have but little to add to the information respecting,it which appears
in my * BfH1* «*f Ad®,' and which is here transcribed.
“ This if owe of the most ubiquitous Buntings in existence ; for it is spread far aud wide over the
northern portion of the Obi World, being found in China, in the A moorland, the Himalayas, the Daurian
Alps, India, the northern and central parts of Europe, accidentally in Italy and Heligoland, and has appeared
« paIlas, who was the first to make us aware of its existence, states that it inhabits the neighbourhood of
the rivers and the tarch-grouuds among the torrents of the Daurian Alps ; Dr. Bree states that it lives and
breeds in the neighbourhood of Archangel, and men
s that € i; of four specimens sent to him from Paris
was labelled ‘ Mer (TOchotzsk ; ’ Mr. Hodgson inclw
1st of the Birds of Nepaul; Mr. Swinhoe
remarks that in North China it occurs in small floe
between Takoo and Peking, and that in winter a few
says :—‘ This small Bunting is found throughout tfc
procured it at Darjeling, Hodgson in Nepal, and
ground with low bushes, in small flocks. Adams
Kolassee, in the Purneah district, frequenting grass
likely to be remarked, it wit! probably be found in a
k* «ai the bank* of canals and the edges of waterpools
visit the southern parts of that country; and Mr. Jerdon
io whole extent of the Himalayas during the wiuter. I
Adams in the north-west. It frequeuts bare spots of
i says H has the habits of a Redpole. I shot one near
and bashes near a small river; and as it is a bird not
imilar places throughout the plains in the north of India
during the cold weather.' "
“ The only specimen of ibis small Hunting that we brought home,” says Herr Gustav Radde,
the 18th September, on the upper Amoor, a little below the mouth of the Oldoi. It was a female that quite
in the autumn dress, the feathers of the head have rust-yellow edges,
ripes and rust-coloured middle stripes somewhat indistinct, and only to
r this Bunting in the lower Amoorland, in a scanty part of the pinc-
„d the sea-coast. It lay on the ground between moor-tossoeks, and was
irch and pine. The eggs in it, five in number, were exactly of the size
agrees with Pallas’s description
which make both the black side
dhow in spots. I found a nes
forest between the lake of Kids
artlessly made of spines of tb
...d form described by Middendorff, viz. strongly tapering, 17 5 millim. long, and 14 broad, covered, on a
lirtv-white ground, all over with very many violet-brown spots and markings : on the 17th June they were
still quite nniiicu bated. We may observe, by the way. that here and there betwcij
tussocks in the
wood there lay remains of snow." (Schrenck’s ‘ Vogel des Amurlandes,' p. 289.)
I