190 TREE PIPIT. 
of May, and departs again in September; sometimes a little 
earlier. The males arrive a week or ten days before the 
females. 
It is solitary in its habits, and not gregarious like its 
kindred species just described. 
The Tree Pipit will be seen to ascend upwards on quivering 
wings a short distance from the spray on which it has been 
perched, and having attained the moderate elevation to which 
it had aspired, it again descends, with outstretched wings and 
expanded tail, slowly, and with a sweep, to the same or some 
neighbouring spot. Over and over again is the evolution gone 
through by the happy little bird, which thus doubtless gives 
vent to the exuberance of its feelings. It rarely alights on 
the ground without having first halted on a tree, as a sort 
of ‘half-way house,’ which it, in like manner, makes its 
‘Traveller’s rest,’ when leaving the ground for the short flight 
that it may intend. 
Its food consists of flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and 
worms, and also small seeds. 
Like ‘Annie Laurie’s,’ its ‘voice is low and sweet,’ a pretty 
little song, warbled while perched on the branch of a tree, 
or occasionally on the ground; and also, and most frequently, 
while descending to it in the manner already described. It 
begins in the spring and continues till July. It is but a 
monosyllabie effusion, with therefore hardly any variety—a 
‘tsee, tsee, tsee, often repeated. 
The nest is placed on the ground, in woods and plantations, 
under the shelter or secrecy “of some small bush, or tuft of 
herbage, or perchance on ‘the branch of some low bush, if 
close to the ground. It is formed of small roots and grass, 
with occasionally a little moss, and is lined with a few hairs. 
It measures about three inches across, and about an inch in 
thickness of construction. 
The eggs are four or five in number, and are generally 
greyish white in colour, with a faint tinge of purple, clouded 
and spotted with purple brown, or purple red. They vary 
almost ‘ad infinitum,’ more so, it is said, than those of any 
other land bird. Some are dull bluish white, spotted with 
purple brown; others reddish white, entirely covered with 
specks of deep red; others reddish white, clouded with pale 
purple grey, and finely streaked and spotted with rust black; 
others again pale purple red, minutely marked in a net-like 
manner with a darker red. 
