ANTHUS CERVINUS. 3G9 



1^194>1. Four.— Carlton -CohiWe, Suffolk, 21 May, 1890. 

 "E. N." 



My brother wrote that going to Carlton io hope of seeing a Woodcock which 

 had been reported to be there, a friend told him of a bird's nest which he had 

 found the week before with six eggs, of which he had taken three and left 

 them at the farm-house. My brother went with him to the nest, finding it to 

 be that of a Tree-Pipit, two birds of which species he had just heard singing. 

 The nest was in ordinary meadow-grass on the bank of a small stream not a 

 foot wide. There were a good many oak-trees in the field, but no bushes of 

 any kind. My brother took one egg, and his friend gave him the other three 

 wliich he had previously taken.] 



ANTHUS CERVINUS (Pallas). 



[At the beginning of the year 1855 the position of Anthus cervinus as a regular 

 member of the European Fauna was not assured. Some of the best authors refused 

 to acknowledge it as a good species \ and but few ornithologists suspected that it 

 was other than a chance visitor to our quarter of the globe. Yet its true character 

 as a native of the extreme north of the Continent might have been inferred lon^ 

 before from the discovery of Lov^n, who, accoi-ding to Sundevall (K. Vet.-Ak. 

 Handl. 1840, p. 44), at that time an unbeliever in its specific validity, had met many 

 examples in the summer of 1837 among the birch-shrubs of the Tana, and stated 

 that by its song alone he could distinguish it from A. pratensis. More than a dozen 

 years later the result of Schrader's far longer and still unparalleled experience - was 

 published in the ' Journal fiir Orniihologie ' for 1853 (pp. 252, 253), and gave the 

 first account of its nidification and other habits in Europe. In the meanwhile 

 Professor Liljeborg had recorded its occurrence (K. Vet.-Ak. Ilandl. 1850, pp. 279, 

 318) at Schuretskaja in Russian Lapland and near Tromso in Xorway^. These 



' [Naumann's having described and figured (Vog. Deutschl. iii. p. 777, Taf. 85. 

 fig. 1) an example as a very old male of A. pratensis — an eiTor noticed by Thieue- 

 mann in 1848 (Rhea, ii. p. 173) — helped to confirm this mistaken notion. — Ed.] 



^ [In what year Schrader ascertained that it was a regular summer-visitant to and 

 native of Lapland I cannot tell. Possibly the so-called "AntJms montatius, Koch ? " 

 of his first list (Isis, 1842, p. 617) may have been this species; but it is expressly 

 stated {totn. cit. p. 618) that he met with it only once, and that, on the evidence of 

 his fellow-traveller Malm (Naturhist. Tidsskrift, ser. 2, i. p. 106), was on the ]6th 

 of July, 184], at Q&\\s{qu. Syys?)-iarwi between Enara and Utpjoki. During 

 Schrader's subsequent sojourn at Nyborg, from March 1842 to Julj" 1843, and again 

 from September 1848 to August 1850, he had abundant opportunity of observing 

 the species, as is shewn by his notes, the publication of which we owe to Herr 

 Passler, who subsequently, in an article dated 10 January, 1860 (Journ. fiir Orn. 

 1859, pp. 464-469), ably vindicated the dignity oi A. cerviyius as a species. — Ed.] 



^ [There is a German translation of this paper in ' Nauniannia ' for 1852, part ii., 

 and the passages referred to are at pages 98 and 112. — Ed.] 



