ANTHUS PRATENSIS 155 



older than Bonaparte's name of raiji, I liave rejected it because the 

 description given of the bird by Pallas is rather vague and does not 

 well apply to the Yellow Wagtail, but better to the Blue-beaded 

 Wagtail. The description, in any case, appears to refer to an immature 

 and not to an adult bird. 



ANTHUS PRATENSIS (Linnaeus). 



MEADOW-PIPIT. 



Alauda pratensis, Lbm. Sijst. Nat. i. p. 287 (1766). 



Anthus pratensis, Bechst. Natuiy. Deutschl. iii, p. 732 (1807) ; Sharpc, 

 Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. x, p. 580 ; Loche, Expl. Sci. Alg. Ois. ii, p. 16 

 (1867); Koenig, J. f. 0. 1888, p. 214; id. J. f. 0. 1893, p. 28; 

 Wliitaker, Ibis, 1895, p. 96; Erlanger, J. f. 0. 1899, p. 317. 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from Tunis, North Tunisia. 



Aljove olive-brown, with dark brown centres to feathers ; faint supercihary 

 stripe buff ; wings dark brown, the secondaries and coverts broadly margined 

 with buffy-white ; tail dark brown, with the exception of the outermost pair 

 of rectrices, which are white, with an oblique brown margin to the inner web 

 and the adjoining pan-, which have a white patch on the tip of the inner web ; 

 underparts buffy-white, thickly spotted on the sides of the neck, breast and 

 flanks with longitudinal blackish-brown markings; hind-claw long and only 

 slightly curved. 



Iris dark brown ; bill dark brown ; feet light brown. 



Total length 5'50 inches, wing 3, culmen -40, tarsus 'SO, hind-claw "50. 



Adult female similar to the male. 



The Meadow-Pipit is common in Tunisia during the winter 

 months, arriving regularly in autumn and leaving again in the early 

 spring. By the end of March the vernal migration of these birds seems 

 to have terminated, and I have no note of the species occurring after 

 that date, or of its breeding anywhere in the Eegency. Mr. C. Dixon, 

 however, appears to have met with the species in Algeria in the month 

 of May {Ibis, 1882, p. 571). 



Although the Meadow-Pipit is generally to be found in Tunisia 

 in the coast districts, or on the borders of inland lakes, it may 

 occasionally be met with on some of the plains of the interior at a 

 considerable distance from the coast. As a rule, however, in its 



