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A dozen men-of-war are gliding majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from the top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold.
It had seemed a wise plan to settle in the same neighbourhood, the more so that Bunting, who had a good appearance, had retained the kind of connection which enables a man to get a job now and again as waiter at private parties. But life moves quickly, jaggedly, for people like the Buntings.
Flocks of Waders roam about the tidal estuaries in search of food, and different kinds of Gulls assemble there and preen their feathers or sleep; Warblers alter their mode of life, and in the osier bed, or amongst the elders, seek their food together in peace; Finches, Buntings, Pipits, and Wagtails, though food is everywhere abundant, gather themselves together respectively into bands which, as winter approaches, grow into flocks and even into composite flocks; and as the Warblers leave for the south, so their places are filled by flocks of Thrushes and Finches from the north.
An incident which happened in the spring of 1917 will serve to make this clear. A flock of some thirty Yellow Buntings, Greenfinches, and Chaffinches were feeding in one corner of a field which had recently been sown with barley. As they sought their food they wandered outwards into the middle of the field, and in so doing, passed across the territory of a Skylark.
The larks and snow buntings that come to us from the north subsist almost entirely upon the seeds of grasses and plants; and how many of our more common and abundant species are field-birds, and entire strangers to deep forests?
Flocks of crazy, distracted birds flew close by in great numbers, for the most part finches and larks, with here and there a fieldfare or two, their breasts and underwings buff colour. Then came a flight wholly made up of buntings, whose brilliant yellows looked deep orange against the leaden grey that shrouded all. There was no end to the great host.
Two buntings are common in the Western Himalayas. A broad slate-coloured band runs from the base of the beak over the top of the head to the nape of the neck. In addition to this, there are on each side of the head blackish bars, like those on the head of the quail. By these signs the bird may be recognised. This is a chestnut-coloured bird with a pale grey cap.
Very little trouble had been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same condition as that in which the Buntings had found them. For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove.
Vapors hung just above the tree tops, seething like smoke from hidden chimneys. How the birds rejoiced after the shower! Two cardinals woke the echoes with their wild, ringing calls. Indigo buntings, using the telephone wires as a point from which to start messages, sent them out in all directions. These, if not so important as those of men, were more pleasant to hear.
They go usually in scattered parties, and appear in Massachusetts about the middle of autumn, arriving from Canada and Labrador, where they spend the summer. They differ entirely from the Buntings in their appearance, the latter being called White Snow-Birds, to distinguish them from the others, which are slate-colored.
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