THE MEADOW PIPIT 
his short yet pleasing song. ‘This is usually uttered in the 
air, the bird at intervals rising from the ground in silence 
for fifty feet or more, then returning to the earth, singing 
as he comes, on outspread wings and tail. Except in the 
actual nesting season this Pipit is more or less sociable, or 
even gregarious, and even in summer numbers may be 
found breeding within a small area of suitable ground. 
After the young are reared parties and small flocks 
wander far and wide in quest of feeding-grounds, and in 
autumn especially these frequent many of the cabbage- 
and turnip-fields in suburban London. Here they may be 
flushed from the growing crops, rising and taking short 
flights from one part of the cover to another, uttering a 
singularly plaintive peep as they doso. In severe weather 
they often resort to manure-heaps, farmsteads, and the 
exposed banks of any open water. Snowstorms are often 
fatal to them. With the advance of spring the parties 
break up and scatter over their breeding-places. The 
food of this Pipit consists of insects, small worms, snails, 
grubs, tiny seeds, and even occasionally grain. The 
breeding season commences in April, and the nest is always 
placed on the ground, sheltered by a small stone, a bush, 
a tuft of grass, or rushes, and frequently amongst heather, 
bilberry wires, or long herbage on a bank. It is loosely 
made, cup-shaped, of dry grass, moss, and bits of surround- 
ing herbage, lined with fine grass and hair. The four, 
five, or six eggs are white suffused with brown, or pale 
green mottled, spotted, and speckled with brown of 
various shades. 
The adult Meadow Pipit has the upper parts olive- 
brown, the feathers having darker centres, except on the 
rump and upper tail-coverts; the under parts are greyish 
white, suffused with olive on the flanks; the neck, breast, 
and flanks streaked with blackish brown; some of the 
wing-coverts are marked with dull white, and the outer 
tail-feathers are also marked obliquely with white. Bill 
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