CRITHOPHAGA MILIARIA.
Common Bunting’.
Emberiza miliaria, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 308.
-------------calandra, Linn. Faun. Suec., p. 83.
Miliaria septentrionalis, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl., p. 291.
— germanica, Brehm, ib., p. 292.
peregrina, Brehm, ib., p. 293, tab. 19. fig. I. ^ ^
Cgnchramus miliaria, Bonap. Geog. and Comp. List of Birds of Eur. and j j Amer., p. 35.
Spinus miliarias, G. R. Gray, List of Gen. of Birds, 1841, p. 61.
Miliaria Europaa, Swains. Nat. Hist, of Birds, vol. ii. p. 290.
Crithophaga miliaria, Cab. Mus. Hein., Theil i. p. 127.
I f this be not the largest member o f the Emberizi»«. or family o f Buntings, it is unquestionably the largest
species inhabiting the British Islands. B B s .
It is a bird familiarly known to us as the Common Bunting, Corn-Bunting, and Buntmg-Lark. The first
of these trivial names is especially applicable, since its dispersion is so general that there is no spec.es more
ubiquitous. Not only does it inhabit, the mainland of these kingdoms, but even the smallest »lands around
them are not destitute of its presence. Macgillivray states that no bird is more common in the Outer
Hebrides, where it is known by the name of Sparrow. Now, although so generally dispersed, numerically
i, is less abundant than most of the other species of its family. In England at least g is a solitary creature
dotted here and there ; sometimes it may he seen perched on the topmost branch of the hedgerow at others
on the telegraph-wires, which now, like great cobwebs, stretch over nearly every part of the country The
sexes H precisely alike in colour, and differing but little in size, I is impossible to say whether
male or a female that surmounts the hedge hr sits on the Outermost branches of the trees we may be up-
nroaching in our country walks. It is somewhat shy in its disposition, seldom admitting an observer to come
nearer than sixty yards before it dips down towards the earth, and skims Lark-l.ke into the middle of the
neighbouring field. Its nest is built among the corn, sometimes under the shelter of a tuft of grass, at others
in die midst of a small mass of tangled herbage a few inches above the ground. The eggs are very conspicuously
blotched and clouded with dark brown, on a purplish-grey ground ; they are four, live, or six . . sum .
Out of the British Islands, the Common Bunting forms part of the avifauna of the temperate and warmer
„„rtions of Europe; in the northern part of Africa “ it is so abundant about Martinmas says the
Bev C A J o h n s , “ that all the trees in the public roads and squares of the vdlages are literally covered
H ■ birds, and they become a staple article of food;“ in Palestine, Mr Tristram says ,t ,s as common
,L a rk in England on all the corn-plains throughout the year ; it ,sknown to be equally numerou
in the islands of the Mediterranean and in Asia Minor; and that it is also found ,n Persia ,s certain, for I
liavp a s u e d men which was killed at Erzeroum. , , p
m e projecting, knob-like, horny excrescence on the roof of the mouth and the opposed »»“ inff-angle of
l ie projecting, : Buntings, is perhaps more conspicuous in the present spec.es than in any
the grain and seeds upon which they ,he Common Bunting becomes gregarious in autumn
Though seen only in pan dun. g p g Chaffinches, Sparrows, and other birds, which at that
and winter, and may« ^ ^ Sg of food. .A very destructive habit, which it exhibits in
time resort to farm-yards an ^ ^ _ j 0„rnal 0f a Naturalist: ¡1“ It could hardly be supt
h e s e situations, is thus described y^ ^ _| P | ^ HK|yet l this morni„g saw a
posed that this bud not large ^ ^ ^ „ Mch this Bunti„g effected by
nCk M b M W M and deliberately drawing it out, to search for any grain the ear might contain-
seizing the end ot the straw an the gr0Und, the other against
the base of the rick b e m g entirely surrounded b, th e “ "e ‘¡f by fhe Ua n d f and so completely was
. . . . . . » —
belter; but many of them tak' n“P . ‘I, tl,is time they are remarkably fat, and are considered
emmloved for the purpose