richard"'s pipit. 401 



periodically in other Pipits ; but the females are less rufous 

 than the males. 



It will have been observed by my readers that I have not 

 adopted Cuvier's sub-genus Budytes among the Wagtails, a 

 division founded on the greater length and curvature of the 

 claw of the hind toe, which connects these birds with the 

 Pipits and the Larks. The vignette at the foot of page 374 

 shews the difference in the length and form of the hinder 

 claw in Motacilla and Buch/tes, but this alteration in form 

 is not indicative of, or accompanied by, any decided differ- 

 ence in the habits of the birds. Some difference in the cha- 

 racter of the plumage in the breeding season is, however, ob- 

 servable in connexion with this division. The species with 

 the shorter hind claw obtain in part a decided difference of 

 colour in spring, — namely, the black throat assumed for a 

 time in the Pied and the Grey species ; but those with the 

 longer hind claw, the Yellow Wagtail and Ray's Wagtail, 

 are only altered in spring by richer tints of the colour pre- 

 viously borne, not by a change to black. 



The vignette at the foot of page S88 represents, of the 

 natural size, the feet of the four British species of the genus 

 Anthus, in the order in which they have been described here, 

 — namely, No. 1, the Tree Pipit, No. 2, the Meadow Pipit, 

 No. 3, the Rock Pipit, and No. 4, Richard's Pipit, and con- 

 siderable modification prevails in each : here, however, the 

 alteration in the form of the hind claw is accompanied by a 

 difference in the manners of the birds, witness the arboreal 

 habits in connection with the short hind claw of the first, the 

 Tree Pipit, and the decided terrestrial habits in conjunction 

 with the elongated hind claw in the last, or Richard's Pipit. 

 Mr. Vigors some years ago suggested the propriety of re- 

 moving Richard's Pipit from the genus Anthus, and proposed 

 for it the term Cori/dalla, but this distinction has not, that 

 I am aware, been adopted by systematic writers. 



VOL. I, 2d 



