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THE MEADOW PIPIT 117 
top of a bush, or one of the upper branches of an elm-tree standing 
in a hedgerow, from which, if watched for a short time, he will be 
seen to ascend with quivering wing about as high again as the tree; 
then, stretching out his wings and expanding his tail, he descends 
slowly by a half-circle, singing the whole time, to the same 
branch from which he started, or to the top of the nearest other 
tree ; and so constant is this habit with him, that if the observer 
does not approach near enough to alarm him, the bird may be seen 
to perform the same evolution twenty times in half an hour, and I 
have witnessed it most frequently during and after-a warm May 
shower.’ Its descent to the ground is generally performed in the 
same manner. Its food consists of insects and small seeds, for 
which it searches among the grass or newly-ploughed ground, with 
the walking and running gait of the Wagtails, but without their 
incessant waving movement of the tail. The nest, which is placed 
on the ground, under a tuft of grass or low bush, and very frequently 
on the skirt of a wood or copse, is composed of dry grass and small 
roots, and lined with finer grass and hair. The eggs are usually 
five in number, and vary so much, that extreme specimens would 
scarcely seem to belong to the same bird. In the predominating 
brown hue a tinge of red is, however, always perceptible, and by 
this it may be distinguished from the egg of the Meadow Pipit.1_ The 
Tree Pipit is not seen in Ireland, or it is as yet unrecorded there. 
THE MEADOW PIPIT 
ANTHUS PRATENSIS 
Hind claw longer than the toe, slightly curved ; upper parts ash, tinged with 
olive, especially in winter, the centre of each feather dark brown; under 
parts reddish white, streaked with dark brown. Length five inches and 
three-quarters. Eggs dull white, variously spotted and mottled with 
brown. 
It may be thought at the first glimpse that a difference in the com- 
parative length of the hinder claws of two birds so much alike as 
the Tree and Meadow Pipits is scarcely sufficient to justify a specific 
distinction ; but when it is considered that a short and curved claw 
enables a bird to retain a firm grasp of a small twig, while a long and 
almost straight one is best adapted for perching on the ground, it 
will appear at once that, however similar two birds may be in all 
other respects, yet the slight one in which they differ is the point 
on which hinges a complex scheme of habits. So the Tree Pipit 
1“ Amongst our land birds’, says Hewitson, ‘ there is no species the eggs 
of which present so many, or such distinct varieties, as those of the Tree Pipit. 
No one would at first believe them to be eggs of the same species ; and it was 
not till I had captured the bird upon each of the varieties, and also received 
them from Mr. H. Doubleday, similarly attested, that I felt satisfactorily 
convinced upon the subject.’ 
