TREE-PIPIT 539 



moments on the flat top of a post in the vicinity of the nest. When 

 the female returns to the nest she does not creep up as wagtails 

 usually do, but takes a long circular flight and then settles on the 

 tall grass immediately over it, clinging there for a few seconds and 

 then slipping down the stems of the grasses much in the way a reed- 

 wren would. Probably the blue-headed wagtail is much commoner 

 in this country as a breeding-species than generally suspected. 



In at least one work on British birds this species is described as 

 the grey-headed wagtail ; that name properly belongs, however, to a 

 closely allied bird, JMotacilla borealis, or Af. flava borealis, or M. 

 viridis, which has also a wide summer range in Europe and northern 

 Asia, visiting Africa, India, and the Malay countries in winter. A 

 specimen was recorded from Yorkshire in 1901, two were shot in 

 Sussex in 1903, and a third in the following year, while a fourth 

 nested in Romney Marsh, Kent, in 1906. It was noticed on passage 

 in Fair Isle in 1907. A single specimen of the Indian blue-headed 

 wagtail (J/, becjiia, or M. flava beevia) was killed in Sussex in 1898, 

 and one of the black -headed wagtail {M. melanocephala, M. flava 

 melanoccphala^ or AI. feldeggi) in the same county in 1903 ; both being 

 Central Asian birds, which migrate south in winter. Lastly, two 

 specimens, one from Cornwall and a second in 1842 from Norfolk, of 

 the Mediterranean ashy-headed wagtail (J/, cincrea, or M. flava citierea) 

 have been recorded.^ 



Tree-Pioit ^° ^^^ ^^ least as general colouring and appearance 

 (Anthus trivialis). ^""^ concerned, the pipits, or titlarks, serve in some 

 degree to bridge over the gap between the wagtails 

 and the larks, having a brown lark-like plumage. On the other hand, 

 they resemble the wagtails in the smooth hind surface of the shank of 

 the leg, the great relative length of the secondary quills, the two 

 annual moults, and the curiously undulating flight ; in all of which 

 respects they differ widely from the lark -tribe. Pipits of the typical 

 genus, which is alone represented in Britain, have a practically world- 

 wide distribution, being absent only from the South Sea Islands. 



The tree -pipit (sometimes described as An/hiis arboreiis) is a 

 medium-sized bird, specially characterised by the fact that the claw of 

 the hind-toe is curved and shorter than the toe itself The upper-parts 

 are sandy brown streaked on the crown of the head and fore portion 

 of the back with darker lines ; the wing-coverts and inner secondary 



1 For the characters of these various forms of yellow wagtail, the reader may refer to a 

 paper by Mr. N. F. Ticehurst in British Birds (the serial), vol. i. p. 133 (1907). 



