600 MOTACILLIDiE. 



more fully, it almost alwaj-s appears singly or in very small 

 companies, and, notwithstanding assertions which have heen 

 made to the contrary, there seems to he no reasonable ground 

 for believing it to breed in this quarter of the globe, so that 

 the birth-place of those examples of the species which visit 

 Europe has still to be determined. Its authenticated eggs 

 have only of late been known to oologists*. Specimens were 

 obtained in Dauuria, where the bird is said to be common, 

 by Dr. Dybowsld, who however gives no information as to 

 its nidification except that it lays five or six eggs (Journ. 

 fiir Orn. 1868, p. 339), and examples procured from this 

 gentleman, which have been seen by the Editor, are of a 

 greyish-white closely freckled or suffused with greyish-olive 

 and measure from -9 to -78 by from '67 to -62 in. Observers 

 of this Pipit have remarked that it is strong on the wing, as 

 its frequent visits to western and southern Europe would of 

 themselves suggest, and that it repeats a loud note, syllabled 

 as "chay", at every rise of its undulating flight, this note 

 being audible at a great distance and sufficiently like that 

 of other birds to have attracted attention in several instances. 

 On the ground it stands very high, owing to its long legs, 

 and it has been often observed to frequent pastures over 

 which it runs nimbly, with much of the peculiar action of its 

 family, seeking the insects that affect the dung of the cattle 

 feeding there, or in the south of France to resort to newly- 

 mown fields of lucerne, and is said never to perch on trees. 



This species was made known to Vieillot by M. Kichard of 

 Luneville, a very zealous lover of ornithology, from two exam- 

 ples obtained in Lorraine, the first in October, 1815 f, and the 

 second at the same season of the following year. About the 

 same time Delamotte also procured a specimen in autumn in 

 Picardy, which with one killed in the Pyrenees were the only 

 examples that Temminck had seen in 1820. In 1822 

 Bernhard Meyer stated that Johann Natterer had found it 



* The eggs figured in viu-ious oological works as those of this si^ecies were most 

 likely those of tlie Tawny Pipit just described. 



t Thus Vigors's specimen, killed in 1S12, was the first known to have occurred 

 any where. 



