NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 39 



Family MOTACILLID.E. Genus Anthus. 



ALPINE PIPIT. 



Anthus spipoletta {^Lmiimis), 



(British : Rare abnormal autumn migrant.) 



Double Brooded. Laying season, from end of April to June. 



Breeding area : South-west Palaearctic region. The 

 Alpine Pipit breeds locally on the mountains of Europe 

 eastwards to Persia and Baluchistan. It is not known 

 to breed in Scandinavia, but does so on the mountains 

 of Central Europe, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the higher 

 Spanish ranges, the Urals (as far north as lat. 64°), and 

 the Caucasus. Eastwards it breeds on the highlands of 

 Persia, Baluchistan, probably Afghanistan, and Turkestan 

 as far east as the Great Altai. 



Breeding habits : There is much similarity between 

 the habits of the Alpine Pipit and those of the Rock 

 Pipit, only one bird loves a mountainous habitat and 

 the other a littoral one. Both are rock-haunting species, 

 only the Alpine Pipit, as its name implies, is a dweller on 

 the mountains above the limits of forest growth during 

 the breeding season. Its favourite breeding places are 

 the swampy spots surrounded by rocks and clothed with 

 a brilliant array of alpine blooms. Its habits do not 

 differ in any important respect from those of allied and 

 more generally distributed species. It pairs annually, 

 but at what season we have no information. Although 

 gregarious during winter, it lives in scattered pairs during 

 the breeding season. The nest is placed either upon the 

 ground, amongst loose stones, in a rock crevice, or 

 beneath the shelter of an alpine bush or tuft of herbage, 

 and is cup-shaped, composed externally of dry grass, 

 moss, straws, and roots, and lined with fine grass, roots^ 



