When kept in the house the black disappears from the head of the male, and the upper part of the neck becomes greyish white, spotted longitudinally with dusky black.
Observations.—Thick woods and bushes in a mountainous country are the favourite haunts of the sparrow bunting. It is a bird of passage, which quits us in October or November and returns in April. It is not rare in Thuringia, particularly at the time of passage; formerly it was only known in Russia. Its food, when wild, is insects and all kinds of grain.
In the house, it is fed on the same food as the reed bunting, which it very much resembles in its song and habits: it is taken in the same manner.
THE WHIDAH BUNTING.
Emberiza paradisea, Linnæus; La Veuve à collier d’dr, Buffon; Der Paradiesammer, Bechstein.
This beautiful and rare species is the size of a linnet. Reckoning from the beak to the end of the side tail-feathers, it is five inches and a half in length. The beak is lead-coloured; the iris chestnut; the feet are flesh-coloured; the head, chin, front of the neck, back, wings, and tail are black; the back of the neck pale orange; the breast, thighs, and upper part of the belly are white, the lower part is black; the two intermediate tail-feathers measure four inches, are very broad, and terminate in a long filament; the two that follow, above three inches long, are very broad in the middle, narrower and pointed at the end, from their shaft springs also a filament more than an inch long; the other side feathers are only two inches and a half in length; the two in the middle amongst the longest a little diverging, and arched like a cock’k, are glossy, and more brilliant than the others.
The female is entirely brown, almost black, and does not acquire its proper plumage until the third year; whilst young it very much resembles the winter plumage of the male.
This bird moults twice in the year. At the first, which takes place in November, the male loses its long tail for six months, its head is streaked with black and white, the rest of its plumage is a mixture of black and red; at the second, which takes place late in the spring, it resumes its summer dress, such as it has been described above, but the tail-feathers do not attain their full length till July and drop in November.