THE TREE PIPIT. 173 



" The male has a pretty song, perhaps more attractive from 

 the manner in which it is given, than the quality of the 

 song itself. He generally sings while perched on the top 

 of a bush, or one of the upper branches of an elm-tree 

 standing in a hedgerow, from which, if watched for a 

 short time, he will be seen to ascend with quivering wing 

 about as high again as the tree; then, stretching out his 

 wings and expanding his tail, he descends slowly by a 

 half-circle, singing the whole time, to the same branch from 

 which he started, or to the top of the nearest other tree ; 

 and so constant is tliis habit with him, that if the observer 

 does not approach near enough to alarm him, the bird may 

 be seen to perform the same evolution twenty times in half 

 an hour, and I have witnessed it most frequently during 

 and after a warm May shower." Its descent to the ground 

 is generally performed in the same manner. Its food con- 

 sists of insects and small seeds, for which it searches among 

 the grass or newly-ploughed ground, with the walking and 

 running gait of the Wagtails, but without their incessant 

 waving movement of the tail. The nest, which is placed 

 on the ground, under a tuft of grass or low bush, and very 

 frequently on the skirt of a wood or copse, is composed of 

 dry grass and small roots, and lined with finer grass and 

 hair. The eggs are usually five in number, and vary so 

 much, that extreme specimens would scarcely seem to be- 

 long to the same bird. In the predominating brown 

 hue a tinge of red is, however, always perceptible, and by 

 this it may be distinguished from the egg of the Meadow 

 Pipit.* 



* "Amongst our land birds," says Hewitson, "there is no species 

 the eggs of which present so many, or snch distinct varieties, as 

 those of the Tree Pipit, No one would at first believe them to be 

 eggs of the same species ; and it was not till I had captured the bird 

 upon each of the varieties, and also received them from Mr. H. 

 Doubleday, similarly attested, that I felt satisfactorily convinced 

 upon the subject." 



