About the first of June the nest is formed. It is constructed of fine grass neatly woven in a circular form, and is partly imbedded in the soil, and sheltered or concealed by a tuft of herbage. The eggs, usually five, are six and a half eighths in length, four and three-fourths in breadth, of a sullied white, generally sprinkled with faint touches of different tints of umber. In Pennsylvania, it seldom rears more than one brood in the season; but in the Texas, I have reason to believe that it raises two.
The flight of this bird, when it has settled in a place, is usually of short extent. The male, while passing to and fro from the nest, exhibits a quivering motion of the wings. The female seldom shews this, unless when her property is in danger from intruders. While travelling, which they always do by day, they pass high over the trees, in flocks of thirty or forty, which suddenly alight at the approach of night, and throw themselves into the most thickly-leaved trees, where they repose until dawn. I have surprised them in such situations both in Kentucky and in Louisiana, and on shooting into the place to which they had betaken themselves, although I could not see them, have procured several at one discharge; which proved in one instance to be males, and in the other females, thus shewing that the sexes travel separately. On such occasions, the survivors would sally forth, make a few rapid evolutions, and alight on the same tree.
In spring, I have found them, on two or three occasions, near Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, in meadows, in company with Bob-o-links, Emberiza Oryzivora. On the ground they leap or hop, but never walk. Their flesh is good, especially that of the young birds.
Emberiza Americana, Gmel. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 872.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. i. p. 411.
Black-throated Bunting, Emberiza Americana, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. i. p. 54, pl. 3, fig. 2, male.
Fringilla Americana, Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 107.
Black-throated Bunting, Nuttall, Manual, vol. i. p. 461.
Adult Male. Plate CCCLXXXIV. Fig. 1.
Bill of moderate length, stout, conical, compressed toward the end; upper mandible with the dorsal line slightly declinate and convex, the ridge indistinct, the sides convex, the edges a little inflected, ascending to beneath the nostrils, then descending, with a slight notch close to the narrow tip: lower mandible with the angle short and wide, the dorsal line ascending and very slightly convex, the ridge broad at the base, the sides convex, the edges ascending at the base, then straight and involute to the end, the tip narrow. Nostrils basal, roundish in the fore part of the very short and wide nasal depression.
Head large, ovate; neck very short; body rather stout. Feet of moderate length, rather strong; tarsus of ordinary length, compressed, with seven anterior scutella, thin-edged behind; toes rather large; the hind one strong and longer than the lateral, which are equal, the third much longer, and united to the fourth at the base. Claws long, arched, much compressed, acute.