THE TREE PIPIT. 41 



carried them in a small cage to the far side of Peckham 

 Rye Common, they would not fly away into the private 

 wood that existed there at that date, and it was only 

 by dint of pelting them with little clods of grass that 

 I at last persuaded them to get off among the bushes, 

 where I left them to shift for themselves, which I had 

 little doubt about their being able to do very well, for 

 the winter was past and over and the voice of the 

 Turtle, or at least of the Wood Pigeon, was com- 

 mencing to, make itself heard in the land. 



I cannot, of course, say what ultimately became of 

 my ex-captives, or whether some individuals of the same 

 species that I afterwards saw in the same shop from 

 which I had obtained mine, were the same, or not, 

 but I fancy they must have been different, for they 

 were much wilder than mine had ever been, and espe- 

 cially more so than when I had turned them loose. 



The Tree Pipit, as its English name implies, is not 

 such a ground loving bird as are some of its congeners, 

 but frequents trees, though not usually such as are of 

 any great altitude, and subsists for the most part, as 

 I strongly suspect, on the different species of aphis, 

 or green-fly, that are to be met with in such abun- 

 dance there. 



Mr. Morris, however, affirms that the Tree Pipits do 

 not find their subsistence among the trees, but search 

 W their supplies of food on the ground and seldom 

 among the branches, which is, of course, the exact 



