visitors to the farm-yard and barn-door for the sake of the
grain to be there obtained. Knapp in his ‘ Journal of a
Naturalist ’ has described a case of serious injury done by this
bird, having witnessed a barley-rick, standing in a detached
field, entirely stripped of its thatch, which the Bunting had
effected by seizing the end of the straw, and deliberately
drawing it out, for the sake of any grain the ear might yet
contain. That this is a common habit may well be doubted,
and when indulged in the mischief is generally slight, for, as
Mr. Cecil Smith remarks, in a well-built stack the straws are
too closely and firmly packed to be pulled out without break-
ins: : but where the farmer is careless and the stacks are
loosely put together, as Saxby observes is the case in Shetland,
great damage may thus ensue.
This bird is said to roost generally in thick bushes, particularly
during the cold nights of winter ; but many of them
also pass the night on the ground in stubble-fields, and being
caught with Skylarks in the nets employed for that purpose,
are brought with them to market for the use of the table.
The Bunting is to be found in suitable localities throughout
Great Britain, but, though less common in Scotland than
in England, it reaches and breeds in the Outer Hebrides—
extending even to St. Kilda—in Orkney and Shetland. Mr.
Gray considers it less local in the west of Scotland than in
the east, and has observed its preference for the westerly
sides of islands, as in North Uist and Benbecula, where it
is known by the name of “ Sparrow.” As first noticed by
Jardine many years ago, the numbers of this species receive
a considerable addition at the time of the great general
migration in autumn or the beginning of winter, and specimens
obtained out of these flocks of foreign extraction, which
in Scotland do not appear to come further south than Angus,
are said to be larger and more thickly-feathered than our
native examples. In a less degree a like immigration is
observable on the east coast of England, in Lincolnshire
and Norfolk, but it does not seem to have been so commonly
remarked that at the same season the species almost totally
disappears from certain other localities, where in spring and
summer it is not uncommon, thus proving that even our
homebred birds are subject to the migratory movement. In
Ireland it is found throughout the island and is a permanent
resident, but even there Mr. Garrett, as quoted by Thompson,
inclines to the belief that it exhibits the same tendency,
to which indeed the long-observed habit of the species, as
before stated, to become gregarious in winter is but a prelude.
In Norway this bird is found but in one locality, the
Jsederen reef, which it would seem to have colonized from
the not very distant coast of Jutland. In Sweden it is almost
confined to the extreme south, being rare even near Gotten-
burg, but it inhabits (Eland, though it does not seem to
reach Finland. On the southern shore of the Baltic it is
very common in Denmark and so continues at least as fai
as Livonia. In Russia its most northern range cannot be
given, but though local, it appears to be numerous in certain
districts, especially towards the south. It does not penetrate
to Siberia, but Dr. Dode procured it in Turkestan and De
Filippi found it in all the cultivated parts of Persia. Abbott
obtained it many years ago at Trebizond, and Canon Tristram
says it is resident in Palestine and as common there
as the Skylark is in England. In winter it visits Arabia
Petr sea and Egypt, extending its range to Nubia, where however
it is less often seen. Jardine had a specimen from
Tunis, and it is abundant in Algeria and Morocco. Dr.
Bolle found it common in the Canaries. In Portugal it
would seem to be local, but in certain districts plentiful,
as it is also in Southern Spain. Throughout the rest of
Europe it is more or less generally dispersed, its distribution
apparently depending chiefly on the fitness of the district
for the growth of corn.
The upper mandible has a dark brown stripe along the
culmen, the remainder and the lower mandible being pale
yellow-brown: irides dark hazel: the head, neck, back and
upper tail-coverts, pale hair-brown, streaked longitudinally
with dark brown, the dark line occupying the middle of each
feather; the wing-coverts and tertials dark brown, broadly
margined with pale wood-brown; wing- and tail-quills dark
VOL. I I. G