This species is very similar to the Yellow Bunting in habits and plumage, from which it may be most easily distinguished by the black throat and a black line through the eye. In our islands, however, it is very local and chiefly confined to the southern counties, but stragglers have been met with as far north as Yorkshire.

Although frequenting the hedgerows and open country it delights in trees, uttering its song from the higher branches of some hedgerow elm.

The nest is placed near the ground and constructed of similar materials to that of the Yellow Bunting, but the eggs differ in having the markings bolder and chiefly restricted to the larger end, and the hair lines, so numerous on those of the former species, are much fewer in number. Two broods are reared in the season, the young birds being fed on grasshoppers and insects, and the rest of the year is spent in the fields in company with other flocks of Finches.

The male has the top of the head and nape and rump greyish green, streaked with darker. Wing coverts and feathers of the mantle deep reddish brown with dark median spot or streak and broad light margins. Wing and tail dark brown. Cheeks yellow with black line through the eye. Chin and throat black, succeeded by a narrow yellow collar. Upper breast grey; lower breast chestnut. Rest of under parts pale yellow, becoming brownish streaked with darker on the flanks.

The female is much duller in colour and has the throat yellow. She closely resembles the hen Yellow Hammer, but may be distinguished by the absence of yellow on the head and by the lesser wing coverts being reddish brown and not black. The young roughly resemble the female. Length 6·5 in.; wing 3·25 in.