THE TREE PIPET. 191 



bird has been known to feign being wounded, and also 

 to cover it with grass, leaving a small aperture beneath 

 by which to enter : this grassy covering has been re- 

 moved several times, and replaced by the careful parent, it 

 might be to screen her young ones from the heat of the 

 sun, or for purposes of concealment. It is in the nest of 

 the Titling that the Cuckoo most frequently deposits her 

 egg, and the country people, who have often seen the latter 

 followed by the former bird, derisively speak of the two as 

 parasite and patron, although they seem to forget that the 

 parasite is in reality the larger, and not the smaller bird. 



A remarkable instance of the power of flight of this 

 apparently weak and delicate species is given in * Stanley's 

 Familiar History of Birds.' A common Titlark alighted 

 on board a vessel from Liverpool, in latitude 47 4' south, 

 longitude 43 19' west, at a distance of at least thirteen 

 hundred miles from the nearest mainland of South America, 

 and about nine hundred from the wild and barren island of 

 Georgia. The poor little traveller was taken, and brought 

 back to Liverpool, where it was seen by Dr. Traill, one of 

 our most eminent naturalists. 



THE TREE PIPET (Antlius arloreus). sometimes called 

 the Meadow, or Short-beaked Field Lark, differs so little in 

 size and colour from the species last described, that only 

 a practised ornithologist could tell the difference ; the 

 hind claw of this bird is more curved and shorter than 

 that of the other, and this differs from it in some of its 

 habits, being a migratory species, generally appearing in 

 England about the 20th of April, and in Scotland in the 

 beginning of May. It does not frequent the moors and 

 open waste places, but chiefly the cultivated vicinity of 

 woods and thickets. It has too a more mellow, modulated 

 and long-continued song than the Titlark, which it sings 

 while descending from an elevation of twenty or thirty 

 yards, and sometimes while perched on a tree ; during the 

 time of singing the wings and tail are fluttered. 



The nest, similar to that of its congener, is found among 

 the grass in a wood, or near the margin ; the eggs, four or 

 five in number, are greyish or purplish white, marked with 



