572 MOTACILLID/E. 



be separated into three or four groups — each of a certain 

 type and each so much unKke the rest that it would seem to 

 belong to a different species, though the eggs of the several 

 nests generally resemble one another, as is the case among 

 the eggs of most birds. What may perhaps be regarded as the 

 normal type is a ground-colour of french-white so closely 

 mottled or speckled with deep brown as almost to hide the 

 ground. In many other eggs the ground seems to be 

 yellowish-white and the markings, nearly as close as in the 

 former, are of a rich reddish-brown. Then there is a type in 

 which the whole egg is suffused with brownish-pink, so as to 

 have a uniform appearance. A fourth type differs from the 

 first described in having the markings of a dull but deep 

 brownish-purple. Then we have a distinct style wherein 

 the ground-colour, whether greenish-white or yellowish-white, 

 pale brown or brownish-pink, is marked with bold blotches of 

 dark brown or brownish-purple, having blurred edges, inter- 

 spersed with well-defined spots or splashes of the same, and 

 beneath them blotches of pale brownish-grey, dull lilac or 

 olive. Some of these last recall the eggs of the Blackcap, 

 already described, and are of great beauty. They measure 

 from "85 to '77, by from '64 to '56 in. Two broods are usually 

 reared in the course of the season, and the food of this species 

 is insects and small worms. 



The Tree-Pipit breeds in nearly all the wooded and culti- 

 vated districts of Great Britain as far as Inverness and Banff; 

 but it is seldom found in any open, unenclosed country, and 

 is thus comparatively rare in West Cornwall. It is also not 

 very numerous in Wales, while its occurrence in Ireland has 

 not been satisfactorily established. In the north of Scotland 

 too its numbers seem to diminish, and in that country 

 generally it is local, affecting only those parts which are 

 congenial to its habits, though it occasionally extends its 

 flight to Orkney. 



Our Tree-Pipit is a summer-visitor also to the north of 

 Europe. Herr Collett says it was common near Tromso in 

 June 1872, but it has not yet been observed further to the 

 northward, and in Sweden and Finland it hardly reaches 



