- a1. Chin and throat chestnut; no yellow on under parts; lores, sides of face, ear-coverts, and throat vinous-chestnut; remaining under parts white; breast and sides streaked with black pusilla (p. [683])
- a2. Chin and throat not chestnut; under parts more or less yellow.
697. EMBERIZA PUSILLA Pallas.
LITTLE BUNTING.
- Emberiza pusilla Pallas, Reise Russ. Reichs (1776), 697; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1888), 12, 487; Grant, Ibis (1894), 517; Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 240; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 104.
Luzon (Whitehead). Northern Europe, Siberia, and northern China; in winter to Tenasserim, Assam, Burma, and the Himalayas.
“Adult male in breeding plumage.—General color above rufous-brown, with broad black centers to the feathers, the rump rather duller brown; the scapulars chestnut with black centers; lesser wing-coverts brown; median and greater coverts black, externally edged with pale rufous-brown, with narrow white tips; bastard-wing, primary-coverts, and quills blackish, externally fringed with brown, the primaries margined with ashy brown, the secondaries with rufous; tail-feathers blackish brown, edged with lighter brown, the penultimate feather with a long wedge-shaped mark of white on the inner web; the outer feather for the most part white, with an oblique blackish mark on the inner web, and a small dusky mark near the end of the outer web; center of crown vinous-chestnut, with a broad black streak along each side, forming a band; a superciliary line, lores, sides of face, ear-coverts, and throat vinous-chestnut, with a moustachial line of black along the under margin of the cheeks, running behind the ear-coverts; hind neck paler than the crown, and streaked with whitish like the sides of the neck; remainder of under surface of body from the lower throat downwards dull white; the center of the breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts uniform; the lower throat, fore neck, and breast, as well as the sides of the body, streaked with black; under wing-coverts and axillars white; quills dusky below, ashy along the inner web. ‘Bill brown, the lower mandible whitish; feet reddish gray; iris brown.’ (David.) Length, 122; culmen, 10; wing, 71; tail, 52; tarsus, 20.
“Adult female in breeding plumage.—Scarcely differs from the male, but is not quite so richly colored on the throat, and less distinctly streaked with black below.
“In winter plumage the adults are more rufous than in summer, with rufescent edges to the feathers of the upper surface, especially on the quills and tail-feathers; the black mark behind the ear-coverts is more distinct and not so broken up as in the breeding plumage; the under surface is suffused with ochraceous-buff, and the black streaks are less pronounced.
“Young.—Resembles more the adult female in winter plumage, but has scarcely any vinous tinge about the face; head rufous-brown, streaked with black, with a slight band of fulvous down the center of the crown; back fulvescent, washed with rufous and broadly streaked with black; wing-coverts broadly edged and tipped with yellowish buff; throat whitish, spotted with black like the breast; the latter as well as the flanks yellowish buff, streaked with black. After the first molt the coloration of the adult is assumed, but the plumage is always duller and much paler, and in some birds, probably females, the throat is white without any chestnut.