44 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the nest by the male, though she may occasionally get some food for 

 herself. Incubation begins, according to the Nethersole-Thompsons 

 (1943), with the penultimate or antepenultimate egg, and the period 

 is 13-14 days. Wlien the young hatch the shells are removed, and 

 large fragments have been found away from the nest from which they 

 are presumed to have come (C. and D. Nethersole- Thompson, 1942). 

 Both parents feed the young ones, and the feces are carried away by ' 

 the parents and dropped in flight or after the bird settles. The latter 

 observation we owe to Lt. Col. B. M. B.yves, an indefatigable observer 

 of the details of the breeding economy of British birds, and Dr. H. J. 

 Moon, whose notes are quoted in a paper on nest sanitation by R. H. 

 Blair and the present writer (1941). Jourdain gives the fledgling 

 period as 13-14 days, but the young are often not fully capable of 

 flight when they leave the nest. 



Plumages. — The plumages are fully described by H. F. Witherby 

 in the Handbook of British Birds (1938, vol. 1). The brownish-gray 

 down of the nestling is fairly long and plentiful, distributed on the in- 

 ner and outer supraorbital, occipital, humeral, ulnar, spinal, femoral, 

 and ventral tracts, but is very scanty on the last two. The mouth in- 

 side is carmine, and the flanges of the bill are pale yellow externally. 

 There are no tongue spots, but the tongue spurs are whitish. 



The Juvenal plumage is much like that of the adult, but the dark 

 central streaks of the feathers of the upperparts are more distinct 

 and the brown edgings smaller. The first- winter plumage is like the 

 adult's. 



Food. — The food consists almost exclusively of insects and other 

 small invertebrates obtained on the ground. Jourdain (1938, vol. 1) 

 mentions: "Coleoptera {Byi^hus, Athous, Cercyon, Longitarsus, Oxy- 

 telus, T achy poms, Limnohlus, etc., and larvae), small Orthoptera, 

 Diptera {Tipula, Eristalis, Calliphora, and larvae), Hemiptera, Hy- 

 menoptera, and larvae of Lepidoptera. Also earthworms (Saxby), 

 spiders, and occasionally seeds." 



Behavior. — Something has been said about general behavior on the 

 breeding ground in the introductory remarks. This is a terrestrial 

 species, the ordinary gait, as in other pipits, being a fairly deliberate 

 walk, though it can also run on occasions. The tail tends to be moved 

 slightly up and down as it walks. It has often been alleged that it 

 seldom or only exceptionally perches in trees, but this is altogether 

 too sweeping a statement. Though admittedly it perches in trees 

 much less regularly than its European relative, the tree pipit, it is 

 not particularly unusual for it to do so in places where trees are pres- 

 ent, and this is especially true on migration. It would, however, be 

 fair to say that when the meadow pipit settles in trees it is more 

 often than not only a passing expedient adopted because something 



