SP. CHAR. _Male._ Sides of the head and sides and back of the neck ash; crown tinged with yellowish-green and faintly streaked with dusky. A superciliary and short maxillary line, middle of the breast, axillaries, and edge of the wing yellow. Chin, loral region, patch on side of throat, belly, and under tail-coverts white. A black patch on the throat diminishing to the breast, and ending in a spot on the upper part of the belly. Wing-coverts chestnut. Interscapular region streaked with black; rest of back immaculate. Length, about 6.70; wing, 3.50. _Female_ with the markings less distinctly indicated; the black of the breast replaced by a black maxillary line and a streaked collar in the yellow of the upper part of the breast. HAB. United States from the Atlantic to the border of the high Central Plains, south to Panama and New Granada. Xalapa (SCL. 1857, 205); Guatemala (SCL. Ibis, I, 18); Turbo, N. G. (CASSIN, P. A. N. S. 1860, 140); Panama (LAWR. VII, 1861, 298); Nicaragua, Graytown (LAWR. VIII, 181); Veragua (SALV. 1867, 142); Costa Rica (LAWR. IX, 103); Vera Cruz, winter (SUM. M. B. S. I, 552). Among adult males, scarcely two individuals exactly alike can be found. In some the black of the throat is continued in blotches down the middle of the breast, while in others it is restricted to a spot immediately under the head. These variations are not at all dependent upon any difference of habitat, for specimens from remote regions from each other may be found as nearly alike as any from the same locality. Some specimens from Central America are more deeply colored than North American ones, owing, no doubt, to the freshness of the plumage. [Illustration: _Euspiza americana._] HABITS. The history of the Black-throated Bunting has, until very recently, been much obscured by incorrect observations and wrong descriptions. Evidently this bird has been more or less confounded with one or two other species entirely different from it. Thus Wilson, Audubon, and Nuttall, in speaking of its nest and eggs, give descriptions applicable to _Coturniculus passerinus_ or to _C. henslowi_, but which are wholly wrong as applied to those of this bird. Nuttall, whose observations of North American birds were largely made in Massachusetts, speaks of this bird being quite common in that State, where it is certainly very rare, and describes, as its song, notes that have no resemblance to those of this Bunting, but which are a very exact description of the musical performances of the Yellow-winged Sparrow. It is found in the eastern portion of North America, from the base of the Black Hills to the Atlantic States, and from Massachusetts to South Carolina. I am not aware that on the Atlantic it has ever been traced farther south than that State, but farther west it is found as far at least as Southwestern Texas. During winter it is found in Central America, and in Colombia, South America.