MEADOW PIPIT. 391 



with finer bents, and some hairs : the eggs are from four to 

 six in number, of a reddish brown colour, mottled over with 

 darker brown ; the length of the egg nine lines by seven lines 

 in breadth. The parent bird has been observed to feign 

 being wounded for the purpose of withdrawing attention from 

 its nest. W. Thompson, Esq. in his valuable communications 

 on the Natural History of Ireland,* mentions that " his 

 friend at Cromac has frequently found the nest of the Mea- 

 dow Pipit on the banks of water-courses and drains, as well as 

 on the ground in fields. One which was known to him at 

 the side of a drain was discovered by some bird-nesting boys, 

 who pulled the grass away that concealed it. On visiting it 

 the next day, he observed a quantity of withered grass laid 

 regularly across the nest ; on removing this, — which, from its 

 contrast in colour with the surrounding herbage, he con- 

 sidered must have been placed there as a mark by the boys, 

 — the bird flew off the nest ; and on his returning the follow- 

 ing day, he found the grass similarly placed, and perceived 

 a small aperture beneath it by which the bird took its de- 

 parture, thus indicating that the screen, which harmonised so 

 ill with the surrounding verdure, had been brought there by 

 the bird itself. The same gentleman once introduced the 

 egg of a Hedge Accentor into a Meadow Pipit's nest, con- 

 taining two of its own eggs ; but after a third egg was laid, 

 the nest was abandoned," The desertion of the nest was pro- 

 bably induced by the visits of the observer, rather than by 

 the introduction of the strange egg, as the egg of the Cuckoo 

 is more frequently deposited and hatched in the nest of the 

 Meadow Pipit than in that of any other bird. 



The Meadow Pipit, Titling, or Moss-cheeper, is as well 

 known on the heathery mountains of Scotland as it is in 

 England, Wales, or Ireland. According to Dr. Neill, Mr. 

 Bullock, the Rev. Mr. Low, — the author of the Fauna 



* Magazine of Zoology and Botany, and Annals of Natural History. 



