EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 2G3 



which districts it is possible that a few remain to breed. An 

 isolated colony appears to exist in South-east Russia and West 

 Turkestan. 



The nest is always built upon the ground, generally in a well- 

 sheltered situation, and concealed by a clod of turf or a clump of 

 herbage. Sometimes it is built in the tall grass at the foot of a 

 rough stone wall bordering a grain-field ; at others it is on a 

 mossy bank gay with spring flowers, and clothed with a luxuriant 

 growth of herbage. The materials of which the nest is composed 

 vary according to the locality ; externally it is generally made of 

 dry grass or twitch. 



The eggs are five or six in number, greyish-white in ground- 

 colour, very thickly mottled and speckled with pale brown or olive- 

 brown, often so thickly as to hide all traces of the ground-colour. 

 Many specimens have one or two rich blackish-brown streaks on 

 the larger end. The eggs in a clutch in my collection from 

 Hickling Broad are suffused with a delicate rosy tinge. Many of 

 the eggs of this bird cannot with certainty be distinguished from 

 those of the Sedge Warbler, and it is absolutely impossible to 

 separate them from those of the Blue-headed Wagtail. They 

 vary in length from 0*82 to 0"73 inch, and in breadth from 0"63 

 to 0"55 inch. 



THE TREE PIPIT. 

 (Anthus arboreus.)* 



Plate 58a, Figs. 5 — 8. 



The Tree Tipit is a summer migrant to our islands and is very 

 widely distributed. It breeds in northern and central Europe, 

 and in western Siberia as far east as Krasnoyarsk. In Norway it 

 extends as far north as lat. 69°, in the valley of the Petchora to 

 about lat. 65°, and in the Ural Mountains and the valley of the 

 Yenisei to lat. 62°. 



The nest is always built on the ground, generally amongst 

 herbage, sometimes on a bank in a wood, and often in the grass 

 or corn-fields, fifty yards or more from the hedge. It is usually 

 made in a little hole, often excavated by the parent birds, and is 

 constructed of dry grass, moss, a few rootlets, or a tuft or two of 



* Anthus trivialis— Saunders, Manual, p. 123 ; Sharpe, Handb., I., p. 103. 



