162 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



is decidedly the most common of small birds, and is 

 found, more or less abundantly, in suitable localities 

 from the Land's End to Shetland ; it is also exceed- 

 ingly common in Ireland. Though in many habits it 

 resembles the Tree-Pipit, this bird is seldom seen to 

 perch on a tree ; its notes are much softer, and its 

 favourite nesting-haunts very different from those of 

 that species, besides which the Meadow-Pipit is not 

 so exclusively insectivorous, and often varies its diet 

 with various seeds. The only bird of this species 

 which I ever kept in captivity lived for upwards of a 

 year almost entirely on canary-seed, with now and 

 then a few ants' eggs. We have found the abundance 

 of this little bird in a wild district of Inverness-shire 

 a great hindrance in deer-stalking, as it would rise 

 close to us as we were creeping up to a stag, and 

 going off with a jerky flight and cry of alarm, put all 

 the hinds at once on the alert. The nest of the 

 Meadow-Pipit resembles the inner part of that of the 

 last species, but this bird seldom makes use of moss. 

 The eggs are five or six in number, and vary a good 

 deal in colour, though not so much as those of the 

 Tree-Pipit ; the most common type is of a yellowish- 

 white ground, closely spotted and blotched with 

 greyish brown. The nest, in every instance that I 

 have met with, has been placed on the ground, in a 

 tuft of grass or heather or closely cropped furze, 

 always far away from anything worthy of the name of 

 a wood, and seldom even very near to any high trees. 

 On the moorlands and open commons, the nests of 

 this bird are the favourite nurseries of the Cuckoo, 

 and in those localities one or more Meadow-Pipits 

 may constantly be seen in pursuit of an intruder of 

 that species, against whom they seem to display a 

 special animosity. 



