288 BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 



locality, and I know several places in Yorkshire 

 where pairs return to nest year after year with 

 the utmost regularity ; the cocks using the same 

 tree, often the very same branch, to start from 

 and return to after their short singing flight. Near 

 woods, plantations, and tree-fringed streams. Affects 

 more cultivated districts than the Meadow Pipit. 

 Scattered over England in suitable districts, rare 

 in the west and parts of Wales, more numerous in 

 the south of Scotland, rare in the north, and not 

 reported in Ireland on trustworthy authority. Our 

 illustrations were procured in Surrey. 



Materials. Dry grass, moss, roots, lined with finer 

 grass and generally, though not always, horsehair. 



Egg 8 - Four or five, sometimes six ; exceedingly 

 variable in coloration. Professor Newton regards 

 those of " a french-white, so closely mottled or 

 speckled with deep brown as almost to hide the 

 ground-colour," as the normal type ; whilst Morris 

 regards those " greyish-white in ground-colour, with 

 a faint tinge of purple, clouded and spotted with 

 purple-brown or purple-red," as the most general, 

 and amongst the nests I have found this type has 

 certainly been the most numerous. In another 

 type the ground-colour is yellowish-white, and the 

 spots rich reddish-brown. Some eggs are of a 

 uniform brownish-pink, rarely marked on the larger 

 end with hair-lines of dark brown or black. The 

 spots not only vary much in colour, but in size 

 and distribution. Size about .83 by .63 in. The 

 larger size of the eggs, their inclination to reddish- 

 brown, and locality of nest, help to distinguish them. 

 (See Plate III.) 



Time. May and June. 



Remarks. Migratory, arriving in April and 



