ii6 OUR RESIDENT BIRDS 



with white ; outer primaries black, with white tips. 

 Bill yellow. Legs and feet flesh-colour. Length 24 in. 

 Female similar. In winter, head and neck streaked with 

 grey. Young : upper parts streaked and mottled with 

 brown ; under parts first brown, then mottled with 

 greyish brown. Full adult plumage in the fifth year. 

 Nestling : covered with greyish buff down, mottled with 

 black on head, upper parts, and chest ; lighter on under 

 parts. 



Language. A noisy kind of yelping ; also a cry 

 reminding one of a derisive laugh. 



Habits. Gregarious in the breeding season. Flight 

 powerful and fairly rapid. In disposition quarrelsome 

 and thieving. It beats about the shore at low tide on 

 the look-out for any nasty mess cast up by the sea, and 

 on finding anything a good deal of squabbling and yelping 

 ensues. It will kill young weakly birds, and eats other 

 birds' eggs with avidity. It also catches surface- 

 swimming fish, and may, at times, be seen far inland 

 searching the ploughed land for worms, &c. 



Food. Fish usually, but in hard times it is practically 

 omnivorous. 



Nest. May. One brood. 



Site. On ledges of sea-cliffs, on masses of isolated 

 tumbled rocks, on the ground under some overhanging 

 rock, or some sea-girt islet. 



Materials. Grass-sods, seaweed, and other marine 

 plants. 



Eggs. Two or three. Olive-brown, spotted and 

 blotched with rich dark umber and greyish brown. 

 Variable. 



ROCK PIPIT (Anthus obscurus). 



Found nearly all round our coast-lines, except on 

 the east ; common in Channel Islands and in northern 

 islands of Scotland. 



