VARIETIES OF PIPITS 145 



tree and meadow pipits, are common ; one, the 

 rock pipit (chiefly a resident on the sea-coast and 

 mud-flats in the winter), is local, and therefore 

 more or less uncommon. The rest, viz., the red- 

 throated, water, tawny, and Richard's pipits, are 

 too rare and seldom met with to come within 

 the scope of this work. I therefore think that it 

 is unnecessary to refer to more than the two first- 

 named varieties, i.e., the tree and the meadow 

 pipits. Of these, the former is the longer. It 

 is a migratory bird, coming in the spring and 

 leaving in the autumn. Its hinder claw is c^irved. 

 Its entire length is six inches and a half. Its 

 habits are peculiarly distinct from those of the 

 meadow pipit. Yarrell thus describes it : ' He 

 generally sings while perched on the top of a 

 bush, or one of the upper branches of an elm-tree 

 standing in a hedgerow ... he will be seen to 

 ascend about as high again as the tree ; then, 

 stretching out his wings and expanding his tail, he 

 descends slowly by a half-circle, singing the whole 

 time, to the same branch from which he started, 

 or to the top of the nearest other tree. ... Its 

 descent to the ground is generally performed in 

 the same manner.' All the pipits move their 

 tails very much after the fashion of the wagtails, 

 and this habit serves to distinguish them from the 

 larks, which they so strongly resemble in some 

 other respects. 



Unlike the tree-pipit, the meadow-pipit does not 

 perch on trees, its hinder claw being too straight 



10 



