Emberiza pusilla Pallas, Reise Russ. Reichs (1776), 697; Sharpe,
Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1888), 12, 487; Grant, Ibis (1894), 517;
Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 240; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List
(1906), 104.
Luzon (Whitehead). Northern Europe, Siberia, and northern China;
in winter to Tenasserim, Assam, Burma, and the Himalayas.
"Adult male in breeding plumage.--General color above rufous-brown,
with broad black centers to the feathers, the rump rather duller
brown; the scapulars chestnut with black centers; lesser wing-coverts
brown; median and greater coverts black, externally edged with pale
rufous-brown, with narrow white tips; bastard-wing, primary-coverts,
and quills blackish, externally fringed with brown, the primaries
margined with ashy brown, the secondaries with rufous; tail-feathers
blackish brown, edged with lighter brown, the penultimate feather
with a long wedge-shaped mark of white on the inner web; the outer
feather for the most part white, with an oblique blackish mark on
the inner web, and a small dusky mark near the end of the outer web;
center of crown vinous-chestnut, with a broad black streak along
each side, forming a band; a superciliary line, lores, sides of
face, ear-coverts, and throat vinous-chestnut, with a moustachial
line of black along the under margin of the cheeks, running behind
the ear-coverts; hind neck paler than the crown, and streaked with
whitish like the sides of the neck; remainder of under surface of body
from the lower throat downwards dull white; the center of the breast,
abdomen, and under tail-coverts uniform; the lower throat, fore neck,
and breast, as well as the sides of the body, streaked with black;
under wing-coverts and axillars white; quills dusky below, ashy along
the inner web. 'Bill brown, the lower mandible whitish; feet reddish
gray; iris brown.' (David.) Length, 122; culmen, 10; wing, 71; tail,
52; tarsus, 20.
"Adult female in breeding plumage.--Scarcely differs from the male,
but is not quite so richly colored on the throat, and less distinctly
streaked with black below.
"In winter plumage the adults are more rufous than in summer, with
rufescent edges to the feathers of the upper surface, especially on
the quills and tail-feathers; the black mark behind the ear-coverts
is more distinct and not so broken up as in the breeding plumage;
the under surface is suffused with ochraceous-buff, and the black
streaks are less pronounced.
"Young.--Resembles more the adult female in winter plumage, but has
scarcely any vinous tinge about the face; head rufous-brown, streaked
with black, with a slight band of fulvous down the center of the
crown; back fulvescent, washed with rufous and broadly streaked with
black; wing-coverts broadly edged and tipped with yellowish buff;
throat whitish, spotted with black like the breast; the latter as
well as the flanks yellowish buff, streaked with black. After the
first molt the coloration of the adult is assumed, but the plumage
is always duller and much paler, and in some birds, probably females,
the throat is white without any chestnut.
"Nestling.--Yellowish buff, broadly streaked with black, the head
more rufous, and the ear-coverts rufous; underneath white, washed
with rufous on the chin and with ochraceous-buff on the throat and
breast, thickly streaked with black on the latter as well as on the
flanks and sides of the body; wings and tail as in adults, with the
exception that the wing-coverts are more fulvous at tips." (Sharpe.)
Whitehead collected the only specimen of the little bunting which
has been recorded from the Philippine Islands.