MEADOW PIPIT 47 



marsh or piece of waste ground, by tussocky grass or rushes in the 

 open, or by a young plantation of conifers. Again, birds may some- 

 times be found roosting off the ground in hedges, but this appears 

 generally to happen in severe or snowy weather. 



In the Mediterranean countries, where the species breeds only spar- 

 ingly on high ground or not at all, meadow pipits are common in 

 winter on essentially the same types of ground described above, and 

 I recall particularly watching many of them, with a sprinkling of 

 water pipits — the European racial form of the pipit of America 

 from the neighboring mountains — feeding on partially flooded land 

 in the precise area north of Naples where at the moment of penning 

 these words the Anglo-American armies are fighting. In North 

 Africa it occurs also in the hills in winter. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. — Iceland, Faeroes, British Isles, and Continental 

 Europe south to the Pyrenees, central France, northern Italy, Yugo- 

 slavia, Rumania, and south Russia, east through northern Siberia 

 to the Yenisei. 



Winter range. — Far north deserted and range extends to all Euro- 

 pean Mediterranean countries and North Africa and to southwest 

 and west-central Asia. 



Spring migration. — The return passage of birds that have wintered 

 farther south is recorded from mid-March to mid-April on the south 

 coast of England and from as early as mid-February on that of Ireland 

 (Ticehurst, 1938, vol. 1). In Germany passage is described as tak- 

 ing place from March to May, but on Helgoland Gatke (1895) records 

 it as beginning as early as February 24. On the Arctic coast of 

 Norway the first arrivals were not noted by Blair (1936) until May 

 15, but the first birds reach the south coastal districts of Iceland by 

 the end of April, though the inland regions are not occupied until 

 well into May (Hantzsch). Meinertzhagen's (1930) latest record 

 for Egypt is March 20, but on the north side of the Mediterranean 

 birds are present in some numbers until much later. Alexander's 

 (1927) last date for the Rome district of central Italy is April 13, 

 and this agrees closely with the present writer's for the Naples dis- 

 trict, April 12. 



Fall rnigration. — Southward movement of northern birds in Britain 

 from about mid-August to late in October. Emigratory movements 

 from late in September to late in November. From early in September 

 to late in October or November large numbers of immigrants arrive 

 from abroad, some to winter, others to pass on (Ticehurst). In Ger- 

 many the passage is described as lasting from September to Novem- 

 ber (Niethammer). Most leave Iceland by the middle or end of Sep- 



