Richard's Pipit. 205 



the lower mandible paler : feet pale horn-brown ; iris hazel. The female is a little 

 smaller than the male, but similarly coloured. Young birds have whiter margins 

 to the feathers, and the under-surface streaking is more defined, extending also to 

 the flanks. 



Speaking of the habits of this species in Siberia, Seebohm says : — " It delights 

 in wet pastures and rich meadows left for hay in northern climates, where the 

 harvest is late, and it can build its nest in the long grass, and rear its young 

 before the mowers come to disturb it, and where it can find abundance of food 

 in the short grass after the hay is cleared away, just when the j^oung are most 

 voracious. These conditions it finds to perfection in the flat meadows that stretch 

 away, often for miles, on the banks of the great rivers of Central Siberia, and 

 which are overflowed for some daj'S when summer suddeuly comes, and the snow 

 melts, and the ice on the river breaks up. I found Richard's Pipit extremely 

 abundant in the meadows on the banks of the Yeuesay, near Yenesaisk. The 

 country is almost a dead flat for miles, and is intersected with half dried-up river- 

 beds and chains of swamp}^ lakes, full of tall sedges and reeds and water plants of 

 various kinds, and half concealed by the willow bushes and alders, whilst far away 

 in the distance the horizon is bounded on every side by the forest. These oases 

 of grass in the boundless forest are the paradise of Richard's Pipit." 



Speaking of it in India, Jerdon says : — " It always affects swampy or wet 

 ground, grassy beds of rivers, edges of tanks, and especially wet rice-fields, either 

 singly or in small parties. Its flight is strong and undulating, and it flies some 

 distance in general before it alights again." 



With regard to its note Brook states that it is "a soft double chirp, reminding 

 one strongly of the note of a Bunting." Dr. Scully says that its note as it rises 

 from the ground is a sweet soft twitter : the call-note is said to be " soft but 

 loud." Herr Gatke however observes: — "According to my own experience, extending 

 over more than fifty years, during which time thousands of these birds have come 

 under my notice, this call-note consists of a loud, rapid and harshly ejaculated r- 

 r-riliip, sounding, in the case of young birds, almost like r-r-reep ; this is confirmed 

 by the local name of this bird which is derived from its call-note. This note the 

 bird utters only once at every rise, except in some rare cases when, after being 

 surprised, it rises suddenly, repeating r-r-riip-riipp several times in quick succession. 

 As the bird flies almost always at a good height, and its extremely original call- 

 note is audible at a great distance, it betrays its presence to the shooter while 

 still far away ; when the call-note is no longer heard, one may conclude with 

 certainty that the bird has settled on the ground. 



In the manner of its flight this Pipit partly resembles the Wagtails, partly 



