beetles in its stomach, but that towards harvest-time it feeds
principally on wheat. In winter, when it resorts to the
stacks, though not much in company with other species, it
eats almost any small seeds, and is especially, as he was
informed, fond of those of sorrel. At the same season also
Mr. Knox noticed its partiality for hay-seeds.
Since Montagu’s discovery of this species in the southwest
of England, it has been found to breed regularly along
the coast of the Channel so far as Rye, but is less numerous
and more local towards the east. Inland it is known to
breed in the counties of Surrey, Middlesex, Buckingham,
Berks, Wilts, Gloucester, Warwick, Worcester and Hereford,
but in nearly all of them save Surrey and Wiltshire it would
seem to be confined to a very few spots, and perhaps even in
those not to breed regularly every year. Its peculiarly
sporadic distribution in the breeding-season deserves far
greater attention than has yet been paid thereto, and at
present its preference for certain localities is wholly unaccountable.
Even to guess at the cause many more precise
observations than have ever been made are required. In
some parts of its range it seems only to frequent the southern
slopes of the Downs, or the adjoining seaboard, but then
again we find it, and not so very unfrequently, a long way
from such districts. There appears to be a possibility of its
range having extended since the last century, for it can
hardly be supposed to have occupied Selborne in Gilbert
White’s days without coming under his observation ; yet he
assuredly never noticed it, though Blyth in 1837 found it
plentiful about Alton which is close by, and even heard two
examples singing at Selborne itself, where just ten years
afterwards Prof. Bell ascertained that it bred. In winter
some few stray from their ordinary haunts and have been
taken or observed near London and Oxford, in Bedfordshire
(Zool. s.s. p. 2562), Norfolk, Northamptonshire (according
to Lord Lilford), Shropshire (Zool. p. 9780), Sherwood
Forest, near Doncaster (Nat. ii. p. 164) and York (as Mr.
Thomas Allis notified to this work), and at least twice in the
North Riding near Bedale and Richmond (Zool. p. 3056).
Mr. R. Gray says that a specimen was shot near Yetholm in
Roxburghshire about 1840, and one near Banchory in Aberdeenshire
in December 1863, while Mr. Edward notices the
occurrence of one in Banffshire (Zool. p. 6598), and the
shooting of one near Edinburgh was announced by the late
Prof. James Wilson so long ago as 1816 (Mem. Wern. Soc.
ii. p. 658). In Ireland its presence has been recorded at
Wexford by Mr. Blake Knox (Zool. s.s. p. 95).
The Cirl-Bunting is most numerous in the southern parts
of Europe, and apart from Great Britain the most northern
limit it has reached seems to be Heligoland, where it is
known to have once occurred. In Belgium and Holland it
is rare, but it is said to be plentiful in the valleys of the
Moselle and the Rhine, and thence across to Thuringia and
Moravia. It has been obtained both in Bohemia and
Transsylvania, but is evidently scarce in each. In Turkey
it becomes more common, and is resident, which is not the
case with it in Central Europe, and though it only occurs rarely
on the steppes of Southern Russia it is plentiful in the
Crimea—especially on the mountains of its southern coast.
Further to the eastward we know it not ; but Strickland
met with it at Smyrna, where it appeared to him to take the
place of the Yellow-Bunting. In Greece also it occurs,
chiefly as a winter-visitant from the North, but Col. Drum-
mond-Hay found it breeding in Crete, though it was not
very abundant there. It is common in Sicily and is widely
dispersed throughout Italy and Switzerland. It occasionally
visits Malta in autumn, but in Algeria is common in such
localities as suit it and breeds in that country. According
to Capt. von Homeyer it also inhabits the Balearic Isles; and
is said by Col. Irby to be very frequent on both sides of the
Straits of Gibraltar. In Portugal it is plentiful all the
year round, and it seems to be pretty generally distributed in
Spain. In France it is most abundant in the south, and but
seldom breeds in the northern departments. Such is a brief
and necessarily imperfect sketch of the distribution of this
species, to describe which properly would no doubt require a
personal knowledge of almost every district, for, when we