One cannot well mistake this species, as he sits on the telegraph wires bordering the road, uttering times without number the long drawn-out “dzree-e-e” that serves him for a song.
In appearance he much resembles the Skylark, but, unlike that species, which is always so alert and ever on the move, the Corn Bunting spends most of his day sitting in an exposed situation on a hedge or on some tall plant in the open field. The nest is a fairly neat structure of grass, roots, and moss, with a lining of horsehair, and is usually placed on the ground in the middle of a field, and often at no great distance from a bush or some other post of vantage on which, as noted above, he spends the greater part of the day. The eggs are extremely handsome, being of a creamy white boldly blotched and scrolled with very dark brown. Insects and seeds are equally consumed, and both being abundant on the cultivated land, in which he delights, he earns an easy living with the minimum of exertion.
During the winter months he loves company and consorts with the Larks and Finches, generally roosting on the ground with the former.
The sexes are alike and have the upper parts pale brown streaked with a darker shade of the same colour. Throat whitish margined with brown spots; rest of the under parts buffish white spotted on the breast and flanks with brown. Length 7 in.; wing 3·6 in.
The young are rather darker and have the wing coverts broadly margined with fulvous.
It is by no means so abundant as the next species but is widely distributed in open, wild, or cultivated country.
THE YELLOW BUNTING
Emberiza citrinella, Linnæus
Day after day throughout the spring and early summer months the Yellow Bunting may be found, sitting on the topmost spray of a hedge and repeating with monotonous frequency his little song, which has often been rendered by the words, “A little bit of bread and no cheese.” It is neither long nor pretty, there is no music in it, and it is delivered without soul or fervour, yet in open and cultivated country, where the songs of the woodland birds are absent, it forms on a warm summer’s day, a fitting accompaniment to the more ambitious performance of the Lark. Decked out in bright yellow livery toned down and shaded with other dark markings, the Yellow Bunting receives too little recognition at our hands and is not appreciated at his true worth. Harmless, bright, and sociable in habits, he may be found throughout the year in the open fields and hedgerows, and except during the summer months, when insects form a large portion of his diet, he is essentially a seed-eater, destroying in countless numbers the seeds of the various weeds that have a hard struggle for life amongst the cultivated crops.
The nest is a neat structure of grass, roots, and moss woven together and is lined with horsehair. Five eggs form the usual clutch; they are whitish streaked and veined, after the manner characteristic of this family, with purplish red.
In autumn the young and old visit the standing crops in family parties, and they pass the winter seeking their food on the ground in stubbles and fallows or visiting the stack-yards for the fallen grain.