TREE PTPIT. MEADOW PIPIT. 167 



lay on quivering- wing-s, returning again and again to 

 the same bough. The eggs of the tree pipit vary greatly 

 both in colour and markings, some of their rich reddish 

 tints being very beautifal. 



ANTHUS PRATENSIS (Linnsens). 



MEADOW PIPIT. 



The Meadow Pipit or Titlark is one of the most 

 common of our resident species, and generally dis- 

 tributed throughout the county. On heaths and 

 commons, by the banks of rivers, in meadows and 

 marshes, on the grassy summits of our lofty cliffs, or 

 the low marram hills upon the sandy beach, the cheep- 

 ing note of this familiar bird meets us at every turn, and 

 in more cultivated districts, it springs at our approach 

 from the arable land, and, drifting like waste paper 

 down the wind, is gone with a yhit, yhit, yhit, almost 

 before we fairly see it. In summer it is nowhere 

 more abundant than in the district of the broads, where 

 it sings from the top of the small alder and sallow bushes, 

 which are scattered in many places over the drier marshes, 

 and cheeping as it ascends from a projecting spray, 

 utters its simple but pleasing song, with quivering 

 wings and outspread tail, as it slowly descends to its 

 station again. I never remember to have found its 

 nest in these localities, when carefully searching for 

 the eggs of the sedge-warbler and the black-headed 

 bunting, but it breeds close by on the grazing lands, 

 near the marsh dykes that drain the soil ; and here the 

 cuckoo soon finds it out, and drops its egg, a very 

 ^^ apple of discord," amongst those of the unconscious 

 titlark. I know few things more ridiculous than to 

 watch the great baby cuckoo, helplessly flapping his 



