PASSE RES. EMBERTZIDAS.
E m b e r iza p u s il l a , Pallas*.
THE L IT T L E BUNTING.
At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London on
November 8th, 1864, Mr. Gould exhibited a specimen of
this species, previously unknown to Britain, which he said
had been lately taken in a clap-net near Brighton (Proc.
Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 877). Soon afterwards Mr. Bowley
furnished (Ibis, 1865, p. 113) some additional particulars
of its capture, which took place on the 2nd of the month
named, and, from his examination of the living bird, not
only identified the species to which it belonged, hut concluded
that it had not escaped from captivity. This specimen
has since passed into the possession of Mr. Monk.
While like the species last described a native of the
northern parts of Eastern Europe and of Asia, this
small Bunting seems to he far commoner and perhaps to
have a somewhat wider range in its autumnal wanderings
than Emberiza rustica, as well as to he a regular instead
of an occasional visitor to certain localities in Western
Europe, though it has doubtless been often overlooked in
* Reisen durch verscliiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs, iii. p. 697 (1776).
others. A hen-bird is recorded by Prof. Nilsson as having
been shot near Lund in April, 1815, hut there is no mention
of the subsequent occurrence of the species in Sweden,
nor of its appearance in Finland, Norway, or Denmark. Yet
in Heligoland Mr. Gatke meets with one or two examples
in September or October of almost every year, and, according
to Prof. Schlegel, a hen was taken near Leyden, 18th
November, 1842. Mr. Keulemans has informed the writer
of three other examples in Holland:—the first was bought at
Rotterdam in September 1862, and, after living about three
months in confinement, is now in the Museum of Leyden :
the second was caught by Mr. Keulemans himself in October
1862, and the third was found by him in a cage, but the
owner refused to part with it. In the autumn of 1874, Mr.
Labouchere caught another near Harlem. Still in Germany
it is only reported from East Prussia, and it has not been
observed in Belgium or Northern France. In the South, however,
of the country last named it is said by M. Jaubert to be
the commonest of the rarer Buntings which annually congregate
about Marseilles, and several examples have been
taken in Northern Italy, where they seem for some time
to have passed under the name of E. durazzii, which is
now generally though not universally regarded as a synonym
of E. pusilla. A pair were obtained near Vienna in 1850
by Herr Zelebor and are preserved in the Museum there.
It is included by Messrs. Elwes and Buckley as a rather
rare winter-visitor on the Bosphorus. Writers on European
ornithology were slow to admit this species to a place in
their works, and it was not until Prof. Schlegel had recorded
its occurrence in Holland, as above stated, that it was
recognized as a denizen of this quarter of the globe, yet it
has been found to be not unfrequent by all observers of
birds who have visited the north of Russia—Prof. Lillje-
borg, Herr Meves and Messrs. Alston, Harvie Brown and
Seebohm. Near Archangel, say the two first of our
countrymen, it is “ a very common species, but apparently
somewhat locally distributed. It frequents both pine-woods
of large growth and thickets of underwood, but seems to