ALPINE PIPIT. 249 
plains of North-west India. The Nearctic form of the Alpine Pipit, 
A. spinoletia var. ludovicianus, breeds in Alaska, Canada, and Labrador, 
and the most northern and westerly United States. It winters in the 
States and Central America, and has occurred in Greenland and the 
Bermudas. Its alleged occurrences in the British Islands appear to be 
doubtful; but it has certainly been found on Heligoland, and I have there- 
fore deemed it expedient to figure its egg (Plate 14). Westwards its range 
extends across Behring’s Straits into North-east Asia, as it is a common 
winter visitor to the Kurile Islands and Japan, and was obtained by 
Swinhoe in South China. Strange to say, Brooks found this form in 
winter in the Himalayas and the valley of the Indus: one of these 
examples in my collection is absolutely indistinguishable from skins 
from Japan and Massachusetts. The European Alpine Pipit varies in 
length of wing from 3°6 to 3°3 inch, and in length of tail from 2°85 to 
2°55 inch. Indian birds vary in length of wing from 3°4 to 3:1 inch, and 
im length of tail from 2°65 to 2°45 inch. The Nearctic and Japanese birds 
do not differ from the eastern birds in size, but are darker and less sandy 
in colour on the upper parts, and in winter plumage slightly buffer on the 
underparts *. 
The Alpine Pipit has often been called the Water-Pipit, a title which is 
not only misleading, but has so often been applied to the Rock-Pipit, 
which really deserves the appellation, that, to avoid confusion in the future, 
I have adopted a name which is expressive of the habits of the bird. 
Although the Alpine Pipit is very closely allied to the Rock-Pipit, the 
breeding-haunts of the two birds are very distinct. The latter keeps to 
the rocky coasts throughout the year; but the Alpine Pipit, although 
* The affinity between A. spinoletta and A. ludovicianus has been overlooked by 
ornithologists, in consequence of the omission of American writers to describe the summer 
plumage of the latter bird. It is very extraordinary that two such careful writers as 
Messrs. Baird and Ridgway should have been guilty of such an unpardonable omission. 
It is true that a bird in nearly full summer plumage was figured by Swainson and 
Richardson (Faun. Bor.-Amer. ii. pl. 44); but so absolutely ignorant were English 
ornithologists of the summer plumage of this species that Dresser, in his ‘Birds of 
Europe,’ actually suggests that the figure is taken from a European example of the Alpine 
Pipit which was exchanged for the original skin after the collection was forwarded to 
England. Fortunately, however, Mr. Frank M. Drew, in his ‘Field Notes on the 
Birds of San Juan County, Colorado” (Bull. Nutt. Orn. vi. p. 88), remarks that “some 
birds,” doubtless adults in full breeding-plumage, “ have not the least trace of a spotting on 
the breast,” while others, doubtless September and October birds and young birds in 
breeding- plumage, “ are heavily spotted.” 
It is impossible to suggest any explanation of the unaccountable blunder of Professor 
Newton, who states positively, in his article on the Meadow-Pipit, that the Anthus 
pratensis japonicus of Temminck and Schlegel is the Red-throated Pipit. To this species 
the Japan bird has no resemblance whatever ; it is absolutely indistinguishable from the 
Pennsylvanian Pipit, but might be confused by a careless observer with the Alpine Pipit. 
