the case to some extent in England—at any rate on the
east coast. In Ireland, says Thompson, it is a resident
distributed over the whole island, which from the prevailing
humidity is peculiarly well suited to it.
It is found in swampy ground over almost the whole of
continental Europe from the neighbourhood of the North
Cape to the Straits of Gibraltar, and apparently in all the
principal islands of the Mediterranean as far as Crete. It
occurs too in the neighbourhood of Tangier, and, according
to Loche, inhabits all three of the provinces of Algeria, but
from the silence on the subject of several other observers in
that country it would seem not to be plentiful there, and it
is not to be traced further to the eastward in Africa. As
to the determination of its range in Asia great difficulty at
present exists, for there is certainly a second, if not a third,
form of Reed-Bunting found in .many parts of Siberia, and
the Russian ornithologists do not agree with regard to the
rank to he assigned to either or both. It would seem,
however, that a form quite indistinguishable from our own
occurs throughout the south-western portion of the Russian
dominions in Asia, and that this was also found by Dr.
Severzov in Turkestan. Mr. Hume too (Ibis, 1869, p. 855)
has obtained it from near Badlee, some thirty miles to the
south of Delhi, and the identity of the species with the
European bird was subsequently confirmed by the late M.
Jules Verreaux, though the Reed-Bunting had been hitherto
unknown in India.
The bill is dusky brown above, paler beneath: irides
hazel: the adult male in breeding-plumage has the whole of
the head jet-black, bounded by a white collar, which descends
to the breast; from near the corner of the gape a white stripe
passes backwards below the ear-coverts and joins a broad
white nuchal collar, which is succeeded by a narrow band
of iron-grey and dull black; back and wing-coverts deep
brownisli-black, each feather broadly bordered with bright bay
and ochreQus, the former so predominating on the upper
wing-coverts that they seem to be wholly of that colour; the
wing-quills dark brown, the primaries with a narrow margin
of ochreous-white, but that of the secondaries and tertials,
especially the latter, broader and redder as the inner part of
the wing is approached; the rump and upper tail-coverts
brownish-black mixed with iron-grey; the tail-quills dark
brown; the middle pair somewhat lighter than the rest and
with broad light edges, the two outer pairs margined exteriorly
with white and having a large white patch on the inner web ;
chin and throat black, which at first widens out under the
white collar and then forms a pointed gorget ending on the
upper part of the breast; all the rest of the lower plumage
white, which is pure on the sides of the breast, belly and
lower tail-coverts, but clouded and streaked with brown on
the sides of the body, flanks and tibiae : legs, toes and claws,
brown.
The adult male in autumn and winter has all the feathers
of the upper parts so broadly bordered with light reddish-
brown that the darker tints are greatly if not altogether
obscured. The same is the case on the chin and throat, so
that the bird seems to have a brown head, only here and
there mottled with black. In the spring these light edges
fall off and leave the head and throat of a pure black.
The whole length of the male is six inches. From the
carpal joint to the end of the wing, three inches : the third,
fourth and fifth primaries nearly equal in length, and considerably
longer than the second, which again is a little
longer than the sixth.
The female is rather smaller than the male, and has the
upper part of the head and ear-coverts dark brown, the
feathers being bordered with light reddish-brown ; the lores
and a stripe over and behind the ear-coverts, pale yellowish-
brown ; the back and wings almost as in the male; the chin
and lower parts dull white with an interrupted streak of dark
brown descending from each lower corner of the mandible ;
the feathers of the chest dark brown along the shaft,
becoming light reddish-brown on each web, and bordered
with dull white, so as to present a distinct and broad spotted
gorget.
Young birds in autumn and winter have the bill dusky