NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 41 



Family MOTACILLID.^. Genus Anthus. 



TAWNY PIPIT. 



Anthus campestris {Li?inceus). 



(British : Abnormal autumn migrant.) 



Single Brooded. Laying season, May and June. 



Breeding area : South-west Palaearctic region. The 

 Tawny Pipit breeds throughout Europe in suitable 

 localities south of about lat. 57°. It breeds regularly 

 in Northern France, in Holland, the extreme south of 

 Sweden, the Baltic islands and the Baltic provinces, 

 thence across Russia to the Urals, southwards to the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and eastwards to Asia 

 Minor and Palestine. It also breeds in Africa north 

 of the Atlas range. 



Breeding habits : The favourite haunts of the 

 Tawny Pipit during the breeding season are sand dunes, 

 dry commons, and wide plains where the soil is loose 

 and sandy. I saw much of the Tawny Pipit in Algeria, 

 especially on the plateaux of the Atlas, where it 

 frequented the rich meadows and barley fields, and 

 notably the wide expanses of fallow land in abund- 

 ance, where tortoises dwelt in thousands. Although the 

 birds are so common they are not at all gregarious during 

 the breeding season, and live in isolated pairs, but it was 

 no uncommon thing to flush several pairs within a very 

 .short distance. During the nesting seaso'.i the male 

 frequently essays short flights upwards to sing. This 

 bird breeds no earlier in Algeria than in Greece, and 

 probably as late as in Germany. The nest is built 

 amongst the herbage of the plains and fields, sometimes 

 sheltered by a tuft of grass or isolated bush, and some- 

 times by a projecting stone or earth-clod. It is open 



