and the sides of running or stagnant waters where they are
bordered by alders, osiers, reeds or rushes ; and, though local
from its partiality to such situations, it is not a rare species in
this country, where it remains throughout the year, shifting its
haunt however to some extent according to the season, and
in hard weather not unfrequently joining the congregations
of other Buntings and Finches which assemble round corn-
stacks and in barn-yards, occasionally, far away from water.
The contrast of the black head of the cock-bird in spring or
summer with the white collar on the neck, and the varied
colours of the hack, give it an agreeable appearance, and it is
accordingly a pretty general favourite. If suitable localities
are visited, the male during the breeding-season may be seen
perched on a conspicuous spray by the water-side, amusing
his mate and himself for an hour together with his song,
which consists of an interchange of two or three notes, the
first of which are short and the last of all long. This song,
repeated at brief intervals, has a family-likeness to that of
the allied species, but, apart from its seeming harmony with
the dreary spots the bird often frequents and enlivens, it must
be deemed wanting in melody, and when heard, as it may
also be, in a fertile valley amid the voices of other birds
sounds harshly and out of place. The nest is generally
built on the ground among long grass or rushes, at the foot
of a thorn or on the side of a hank, more rarely in a low
bush, elevated some few inches above the ground; but
Jardine states that he has frequently fStand it on a young
spruce-fir, at the height of from one to three yards. It consists
of coarse grass with a little moss, lined with finer grass
and hairs, or in places where reeds abound the feathery tops
of those plants often form the sole lining and the greater part
of the structure. The eggs are from four or five to seven
in number, of a pale purple-brown or clay-colour, spotted,
blotched and streaked with a darker purple-brown or black,
and measure from -83 to -7 by from -62 to -56 in. Incubation
often begins at the end of March, but a second nest
is generally made, and perhaps even a third brood is produced
in July. Several observers have recorded the artifices
to which this species has resort to distract the attention of
man from its progeny. The most common of these is the
feigning of lameness by the mother-bird, who with trailing
wing or leg, as if disabled, will shuffle through the herbage
for a considerable distance; hut at times the cock will also
enter into the wiles of his mate, and both parents will display
an extraordinary amount of solicitude in regard to a
spot which does not harbour the young with the consequence
of misleading the intruder, if at all wanting in experience,
from the place where they lie. The food of the Reed-
Bunting is grain, seeds (chiefly those of grasses) and insects
—on the larvae of which last the young are especially fed —
with small freshwater crustaceans and mollusks, and its
stomach usually contains much fine gravel.
By some of the older naturalists the song and the nest of
the Reed-Wren and Sedge-bird already described (vol. i. pages
869 and 376) have been attributed to the Reed-Sparrow, and
perhaps there may yet be writers so ill-informed as to continue
the mistake. The hurried, varied and chattering notes
of both those Warblers can never be for a moment confounded
with the simple strain of this Bunting by any one who has
heard the latter, and in like manner though its nest be occasionally
composed of the same materials as that of the Reed-
Wren, before figured in this work (tom. cit. page 375), the
one can always be known by its smaller size and neater
workmanship, and by its being wholly suspended between
the reed-stems, while the other even when attached to the
stems seems to be always supported from beneath.
The Reed-Bunting breeds in suitable localities almost
everywhere throughout the British Islands, Shetland being
the principal exception, since there, according to Saxby, only
three examples have been observed, but these arrived in the
earlier half of the year. Baikie and Heddle state that it has
bred in Orkney, and Mr. Gray says that it does so in most
of the Outer Hebrides, indeed, according to information
communicated by Capt. Powlett-Orde, it is very common in
North Uist. In Scotland generally its numbers seem to
receive a large increase in winter, and probably the same is
VOL. II. E