THE PIPETS, OR TITLARKS. 189 



be Germany. It feeds on insects and seeds ; makes its 

 nest on the ground ; and lays four or five eggs of a dull 

 yellow or pale coffee colour, without spots. 



THE PIPETS OR TITLARKS. 



These birds are very intimately allied to the Larks on 

 the one hand, and to the Wagtails on the other, forming a 

 sort of connecting link between the two, although of more 

 slender make than the former, and differing from them in 

 some other particulars, yet their affinity to them, both in 

 form and colouring, is so great, that up to a very recent 

 period they have been placed in the same genus, and 

 frequently called Larks. They are small, slender, active 

 birds, with sharp, weak, and somewhat querulous notes, 

 which they utter rapidly, vibrating their body the while. 

 They may be found in various situations, but chiefly in 

 meadows and pastures ; some on the seashore, or elevated 

 moors. They construct a neat nest among the grass, 

 beside a tuft, stone, or low bush, and lay four or five 

 spotted eggs, usually twice in a season. Having premised 

 thus much as to the general habits of the Anthus or Pipet 

 genus, we may proceed to describe the four species which 

 occur in Britain. The most common of these is 



THE MEADOW PIPET (Anthus pratensis), sometimes called 

 the Titlark or Titling, which may be found in pastures, 

 cultivated fields, and on moors, all over England and 

 Scotland. In the latter country the names Ling-bird and 

 Moss- Cheeper have been applied to it. They are suffi- 

 ciently indicative of its common haunts in that country, 

 the heaths and moors where ling and gorse abound, and 

 the moss grows thick on the fragments of rock strewn 

 about the scene of desolation ; for although called the 

 Meadow Pipet, this is more emphatically what Hogg calls 

 the Skylark, a 



Bird of the wilderness, 

 Blithesome and cuniberless. 



In length, not quite six inches, with a dusky olive- 

 tinted plumage, flushed here and there with red, and 



