ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--Their song is alternately weak and strong. Three or four simple tones, mingled from time to time with a sharp _r_, distinguish it from every other; it is heard all the summer, even during the night. Of all the buntings, this is the most easily tamed; it is also a great amateur of music, approaching the instrument without fear, as I have observed several times, not of one only, but of many of these birds, testifying its joy by extending its wings and tail like a fan, and shaking them so that, by this exercise the feathers have been much injured. The female sings also, but its tones are weaker than those of the male. THE SPARROW BUNTING. Emberiza passerina, LINNÆUS; L'Ortolan Passerin; Der Sperlingsammer, BECHSTEIN. This species must have been confounded with the preceding, or it would have been better known, as it is not rare either in autumn or spring. It is smaller and more slender than the former, being only five inches long, of which the tail measures two and a quarter; the beak is black above and light brown below; the iris is of a dark chestnut; the feet are nine lines in height and of a dusky flesh-colour; but the plumage in general is similar to that of the female of the preceding species. The male has the top of the head red, with a grey longitudinal streak in the middle, and many black spots arising from the deeper shade of the feathers which appears in every direction; a dusky reddish white line passes from the nostrils above, and also a little under the eyes, and widening behind on the temples, a chestnut brown colour breaks through a deep black, which reaches the sides of the neck and becomes a spot there. The colours of the female are in general lighter, and the black does not appear on the top of the head; a reddish white streak passes above the eyes, another descends from the base of the beak down the sides of the neck, a third, but of a dusky black, extends from each side of the chin to beyond the middle of the neck. 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'or, BUFFON; Der Paradiesammer, BECHSTEIN.