GLYCYSPINA HORTULANA.

Ortolan Bunting.

Emberiza hortulana, Linn. Faun. Suec., p. 84.
Badensis, Gmel. edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. 1. p. 873.
chlorocephala, Gmel. ib., p. 887.
Tunstallii, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. 1. p. 418.
—__—— Malbeyensis, Sparrm. Mus. Carls., tom. i. tab. 21.
citrinella, var., Flem. Hist. Brit. Anim., p. 77.
pinguescens, Brehm, Vég. Deutschl., tom. i. p. 295.
Citrinella hortulana, Kaup, Natirl. Syst., p. 142.
Hortulanus chlorocephalus, Bonap. in Parz. Cat. Ois. d’Eur., p. 4. sp. 131.
Glycyspina hortulana, Cab. Mus. Hein., Theil i. p. 128.

 

Binps not only contribute to the pleasure of man by their songs, their thousand actions, interesting ways,
and varied habits and economies, but they also contribute their fair share towards his sustenance. Besides
the amount afforded by the great group of Gallinacee, the marsh-, and water-birds, many of the smaller
species form no inconsiderable item in supplying bis wants and desires. In the acquirement of delicacies
for the pampering of his appetite many devices are resorted to, some of which are accompanied by a
degree of cruelty much to be deprecated: I allude to the means adopted to obtain the celebrated ‘“ pate de
foie gras,” to the repeated takings of the nest of the esculent Swallow, and the continued robbery of the
eggs of the Plover—acts which cause the Goose to die a miserable death, the Swallow to exhaust itself
‘n the reconstruction of its glutinous cradle, and the Plover to weaken its system by a forced reproduction
of its eggs. In Europe three little insessorial birds are especially regarded as delicacies for the table—the
Wheatear, the Beccafico, and the Ortolan. The last of these (the bird represented on the accompanying
Plate), which, although not indigenous to our island, is sometimes found here, is sent from the continent
to London by thousands, but the great bulk of the community, the middle class and the poor, never see
or partake of them; it is the noble and wealthy epicures alone who can afford to gratify their appetites
with this costly ‘‘ bonne bouche.” The marchioness and the lady of the alderman consult their poulterers
as to the more choice viands for the summer season, that nothing may be wanting for their next recherché
dinner. A dish of Ortolans being the ‘ chose,” the fattening-cage Is resorted to, and a dozen or more are
taken out and killed if they have not already been trampled to death by their companies, or died during
the night from apoplexy or sheer obesity, the little birds, which in a state of nature scarcely exceed the size
of a Tit, having become a mass of fat the appearance of which is very unlike that of an ordinary plucked
Bunting. This essence of millet and canary-seed is certainly not to be despised ; and the clubman of our
great metropolis frequently doubles the amount of his dinner-bill by ordering a couple of Ortolans. Alas
for the fate of the little birds ! which have been netted in Italy, Savoy, and France, and sent hither to be
fattened and stifled in low cages, where they have not sufficient room to flutter their wings, for the special
gratification of those whose gustatory enjoyments dominate over their other senses. The procuring of a
string of Larks is, comparatively speaking, unattended with cruelty; a trapped Wheatear is killed in a
moment, a Beccafico is destroyed with shot, or taken from the meshes of a net and immediately dispatched ;
but the Ortolan, captured during his migration from the southern to the northern parts of Europe, where
he would otherwise have paired, loved, and bred, terminates the last summer of his existence in the cruel
manner above described.

It is somewhat surprising that a bird so common on the continent, and which is a migrant withal, should
not have been more frequently seen in this country ; few, however, as are the instances of its occurrence, they
are sufficient to entitle it to a place in our avifauna. The first specimen recorded as having been taken
in England was captured by a London birdeatcher in Marylebone Fields, and was figured in Brown’s
‘[Ilustrations of Zoology,’ a work published 1 1776: this is the example described by Latham in the third
volume of his ‘ Synopsis of Birds,’ and moreover was the source, according to Yarrell, from which Gmelin,
Lewin, Montagu, and others copied their descriptions. Bewick’s figure was taken from a specimen caught
at sea off the Yorkshire coast by the master of a trading vessel, and which subsequently passed into the
possession of G. T. Fox, Esq. Another was killed near Manchester in 1827. A fourth, taken near London,
in a birdeatcher’s net, in 1837, along with Yellow Buntings, was deposited in the aviary of the Zoological
Society of London in the Regent’s Park. The bird is said to have been seen in Norfolk. Mr. Rodd has
recorded that an example was killed at Trescoe, one of the Scilly Islands, in 1851; the next year one was’