228 REV. ROBERT GODFREY 



even in the case of a nest containing well-developed 

 yonng the owner did not call till I had left the nest. 



The eggs, three or four in number, are ellipsoids of a 

 clonded white ground colour, sometimes with a faint 

 greenish tinge; tliey are thickly blotched all over, but 

 less so at the narrower end, with various shades of brown 

 and are frequently profusely spotted with steel-coloured 

 marks. When fresh they are deeply suffused with pink. 

 The eggs, like those of pipits, vary considerabh' in the 

 richness and the extent of the markings; the overlying 

 marks var}^ from minute specks in some eggs to blotches 

 3 mm. across in others. The measurements vary from 23- 

 26 mm. in length by 18 broad. 



The Yellow-breasted Pipit — Anthus chloris (Licht) 

 — ranks as a scarce bird in Eastern Cape Colony. Dur- 

 ing my stay at Pirie I handled two ; the first was brought 

 in by a boy on 31 August, 1908, and the second, also by 

 a boy, on 19 September, 1910. Only one other specimen 

 to my knowledge has been obtained within our limits, 

 and this Individual taken by Mr. T. A. Newey at Draai- 

 bosch in April 1914 is now in the local museum. To the 

 west of our area I have met with the bird once. On 17 

 September, 1912, Rev. D. B. Davies was driving me from 

 Peddie to the Line Drift on the Keiskama, when he 

 noticed one of these pipits on the veld. He drew up with- 

 out causing the bird to take fright and shot it. Our 

 native attendant gave it the name of iguru, Avhich from 

 its pronunciation is not a genuine Kafir word. 



Plain-backed Pipit — A. leucophrys (Vieill.) — In the 

 Buffalo Basin this is the common pipit in the open tracts 

 below and above the forest, but, at a few miles' distance 

 from the lower edge of the forest, it yields in numbers to 

 the Tawny Pipit. Like its allies it feeds almost ex- 

 clusively on insects. 



Nesting begins in September and continues till Jan- 

 uary^ the earliest and the latest dates on which eggs have 

 been found being respectively September 26 and January 



