190 THE MEADOW PIPET. 



spotted and otherwise marked with brownish black, our 

 lively little Pipet goes jerking about from place to place, 

 seeking its food, consisting of worms, slugs, and insects, 

 on the ground ; or rises with a vibrating motion in the 



MEADOW PIPET. 



air, and there hovers over its nest, singing a song, weak 

 in comparison with that of the Skylark, but not altogether 

 destitute of a wild sweet melody, which it will sometimes 

 pour forth while standing on a mound of earth, or a stone, 

 with its tail moving up and down, and keeping time to the 

 music as though it were part of the machinery which pro- 

 duced it. 



In Ireland, Thompson has found the nest of this bird in 

 the banks of water- courses and drains, as well as on the 

 ground in fields ; he says that the country people, in Kerry, 

 call it Wekeen, probably in reference to the double- ee -like 

 sound of its call-note, the cheep, which has occasioned its 

 being called Moss Cheeper by the people of the lake dis- 

 tricts and Scotland. 



Dried bents, lined with those of a finer texture, and 

 some hairs, when they can be obtained, form the materials 

 of the nest of this bird ; the eggs are from four to six in 

 number, of a reddish brown colour, mottled over with 

 darker brown. To divert attention from her nest, the hen 



