TREE PIPIT. 191 
Male; weight, about five drachms and three quarters; length, 
about six inches and a quarter to six inches and a half; bill, 
dark brown, all the base of the lower mandible and the edges 
of the upper one yellow brown. It is rather flattened out at 
the base, and a brown streak passes backwards and downwards 
from it. Iris, deep brown, over it is a whitish band: there 
are a few short bristly feathers at the base of the bill; head 
on the crown, neck on the back, and nape, olive greyish 
brown, the centre of each feather being darker than the edge; 
chin and throat, pale brownish white or brownish yellow on 
its sides, with a tinge of rufous in the spring, as is the 
breast in front, on which are numerous small spots of dark 
brown; on the sides the spots turn into streaks, and are 
darker: the ground colour of the sides is olive brown, and 
below it is pale brown, tinged with dull white: the autumnal 
moult, which takes place in August, gives them a yellowish 
rufous tint; back, as the nape: with the autumnal moult all 
the upper parts assume a greenish olive tint. 
The wings expand to the width of eleven inches and a 
quarter, and reach to within an inch and a quarter of the 
tip of the tail; greater wing coverts, dark brown, broadly 
edged with pale brown or greyish white, most apparently 
after the autumnal moult; lesser wing coverts, blackish brown, 
edged and tipped with pale brown or buff greyish white, the 
light-coloured ends of both forming bars across the wing, 
most distinctly after the moult; primaries, dark brown; the 
first is the longest, but all the first three are nearly equal 
in length, the second very nearly as long as the first, and 
the third as the second; secondaries, dark brown, more broadly 
edged with a paler tint; tertiaries, dark brown, long, also 
with a broad outer edge of pale brown. ‘The tail, which is 
rather long, has the outside feather on each side brown; the 
narrow outer web, and part of the inner one, in a wedge 
shape, dull white tinged with brown; the next feather is also 
brown, with only a small patch of dull white at the end of 
the inner web; all the other feathers blackish brown, edged 
with lighter, except the two middle ones, which are greyish 
brown, having lighter margins than the rest; upper tail 
coverts, olive grey brown, without the dark markings on the 
centre of the feathers, Legs and toes, pale yellowish brown 
or grey; claws, pale dusky brown, the hind claw considerably 
curved, and shorter than the hind toe. 
The female resembles the male in plumage, but she is 
