YELLOW-BREASTED BUNTING.

Emberiza aureola, Pall.

La Bruant auréole.

Tuts very beautiful Bunting has been more than once captured within the precincts of the European conti-
nent ; it consequently becomes necessary for us to give a figure of it, and in so doing we introduce to our
readers one of the most beautiful species of this group, so celebrated for their agreeable and well-contrasted
colours. A specimen of the male, one of the very finest we have ever seen, was obligingly lent to us by
T.B.L. Baker, Esq., of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester, a gentleman to whom we shall ever feel indebted for many
acts of great kindness and liberality, and who has considerably facilitated the study of ornithology by the
publication of a work entitled «An Ornithological Index”, in which are enumerated the genera and species
contained in the works of most of the present writers, and which he hopes will form a stepping-stone to a
still more elaborate production by some more experienced ornithologist.

M. Temminck states that the native habitat of the Yellow-breasted Bunting is Kamtschatka, Siberia, and
the Crimea; it has also been occasionally seen in the southern parts of Russia, and in other portions of the
eastern boundaries of Europe.

The male is much more richly coloured than the female, and may be described as follows :

A band of black extends round the base of the beak and over the ear-coverts ; the top of the head and
the whole of the upper surface is of a rich chestnut, a band across the chest of the same colour ; throat
and under surface rich yellow marked with streaks of brown on the flanks ; primaries and tail brown,
the latter having the two outer feathers on each side marked with a large white spot near the tip; beak
and tarsi brown.

The female is nearly devoid of the rich colouring which characterizes the male ; the upper surface being
dull brown tinged with green, the under surface olive yellow with the flanks marked as in the male.

The Plate represents a male and female of the natural size.