of rufous, most numerous near the great end (see fig. 6). The young are produced about the beginning of June; and a second brood commonly succeeds in the same season. This bird rarely winters north of the state of Maryland; retiring from Pennsylvania to the south about the twelfth of October. Yet in the middle districts of Virginia, and thence south to Florida, I found it abundant during the months of January, February and March. Its usual food is obtained by scratching up the leaves; it also feeds, like the rest of its tribe, on various hard seeds and gravel; but rarely commits any depredations on the harvest of the husbandman; generally preferring the woods, and traversing the bottom of fences sheltered with briars. He is generally very plump and fat; and when confined in a cage soon becomes familiar. In Virginia he is called the Bulfinch; in many places the Towhe-bird; in Pennsylvania the Chewink, and by others the Swamp Robin. He contributes a little to the harmony of our woods in spring and summer; and is remarkable for the cunning with which he conceals his nest. He shows great affection for his young; and the deepest marks of distress on the appearance of their mortal enemy the black snake.

The specific name which Linnæus has bestowed on this bird is deduced from the colour of the iris of its eye, which, in those that visit Pennsylvania, is dark red. But I am suspicious that this colour is not permanent, but subject to a periodical change. I examined a great number of these birds in the month of March, in Georgia, every one of which had the iris of the eye white. Mr. Abbot of Savannah assured me, that at this season, every one of these birds he shot had the iris white, while at other times it was red; and Mr. Elliot, of Beaufort, a judicious naturalist, informed me, that in the month of February he killed a Towhe Bunting with one eye red and the other white! It should be observed that the iris of the young bird's eye is of a chocolate colour, during its residence in Pennsylvania; perhaps this may brighten into a white during winter, and these may have been all birds of the preceding year, which had not yet received the full colour of the eye.

The Towhe Bunting is eight inches and a half long, and eleven broad; above black, which also descends rounding on the breast, the sides of which are bright bay, spreading along under the wings; the belly is white, the vent pale rufous; a spot of white marks the wing just below the coverts, and another a little below that extends obliquely across the primaries; the tail is long, nearly even at the end; the three exterior feathers white for an inch or so from the tips, the outer one wholly white, the middle ones black; the bill is black; the legs and feet a dirty flesh colour, and strong for scratching up the ground. The female differs in being of a light reddish brown in those parts. where the male is black; and in having the bill more of a light horn colour.

EMBERIZA ERYTHROPHTHALMA.

TOWHE BUNTING.

[Plate LIII.-Fig. 5. Female.]

TURT. Syst. p. 534.-PEALE'S Museum, No. 5970.

THIS bird differs considerably from the male in colour; and has, if I mistake not, been described as a distinct species by European naturalists, under the appellation of the "Rusty Bunting." The males of this species, arrive several days sooner than the females. In one afternoon's walk through the woods, on the twenty-third of April, I counted more than fifty of the former, and did not observe any of the latter, though I made a very close search for them. This species frequents, in great numbers, the barrens covered with shrub oaks; and inhabits even to the tops of our mountains. They are almost perpetually scratching among the fallen leaves, and feed chiefly on worms, beetles and gravel. They fly low, flirting out their broad whitestreaked tail, and uttering their common note Towhè. They build always on the ground, and raise two broods in the season. For a particular account of the manners of this species, see our history of the male.

The female Towhe is eight inches long, and ten inches in extent; iris of the eye a deep blood colour; bill black; plumage above, and on the breast, a dark reddish drab, reddest on the head and breast; sides under the wings light chestnut; belly white; vent yellow ochre; exterior vanes of the tertials white; a small spot of white marks the primaries immediately below their coverts, and another slighter streak crosses them in a slanting direction; the three exterior tail feathers are tipt with white; the legs and feet flesh-coloured.

This species seems to have a peculiar dislike to the sea coast, as in the most favourable situations, in other respects, within several miles of the sea, it is scarcely ever to be met with. Scarcity of its particular kinds of a favourite food in such places may probably be the reason; as it is well known that many kinds of insects, on the larvæ of which it usually feeds, carefully avoid the neigbourhood of the sea.

VOL. II.-Y

SPECIES 3. EMBERIZA ORYZIVORA.

RICE BUNTING.

[Plate XII.-Figs. 1 and 2.1

Emberiza oryzivora, LINN. Syst. p. 311, 16.-Le Ortolan de la Caroline, BRISS. Orn. 111, p. 282, 8, pl. 15, fig. 3. Pl. Enl. 388, fig. 1.-L'Agripenne, ou L'Ortolan de Riz. BUFF. Ois. IV, p. 337.-Rice-bird, CATESB. Car. 1, pl. 14.-EwD. pl. 2.-LATHAM II, p. 188, No. 25.-PEALE'S Museum, No. 6026.

THIS is the Boblink of the eastern and northern states, and the Rice and Reed-bird of Pennsylvania and the southern states. Though small in size, he is not so in consequence; his coming is hailed by the sportsman with pleasure; while the careful planter looks upon him as a devouring scourge, and worse than a plague of locusts. Three good qualities, however, entitle him to our notice, particularly as these three are rarely found in the same individual; his plumage is beautiful, his song highly musical, and his flesh excellent. I might also add, that the immense range of his migrations, and the havoc he commits are not the least interesting parts of his history.

The winter residence of this species I suppose to be from Mexico to the mouth of the Amazon, from whence in hosts innumerable he regularly issues every spring, perhaps to both hemispheres, extending his migrations northerly as far as the banks of the Illinois and the shores of the St. Lawrence. Could the fact be ascertained, which has been asserted by some writers, that the emigration of these birds was altogether unknown in this part of the continent, previous to the introduction of rice plantations, it would certainly be interesting. Yet, why should these migrations reach at least a thousand miles beyond those places where rice is now planted; and this not in occasional excursions,