THE PIPITS 269 



with others, has specially appealed to her? Here, after nearly sixty 

 years, is a matter for further observation. 



** t 



The song of the tawny-pipit, notwithstanding that he mounts, 

 hovers and descends, like a skylark, when singing it, is nothing but an 

 oft-repeated "zeeeerrr" to which he adds " dillem" as a call-note, and 

 "didleen" as "a parley to provocation." 1 - According to Gatke 2 who 

 is most explicit on this point Richard's pipit, in taking flight au 

 naturel, utters a ,single " r-r-reep" a remarkable sound which is heard 

 a long way off, and only during flight. If put up he repeats the cry 

 once more. Whether thjs makes it the alarm-note, and whether the 

 single " r-r-reep " is the call, I leave to those who can with ease deter- 

 mine the exact significance of every cry a bird makes, every time that 

 it makes it I cannot. " The rest is silence," for as Richard's pipit 

 does not breed in Heligoland, 3 Gatke has nothing to say of his true 

 song, nor do I know of any one who has. 



In the construction of the nest (for details of which the Classified 

 Notes may be consulted) the pipits would no doubt claim that they 

 are more nearly related to the larks than to the wagtails, and should 

 the latter contest this which in view of their own pretensions to 

 alone represent the Motacillince,* is, in the highest degree, unlikely 

 they might point to the employment of roots in that of M. lugubris, 

 and to the greater untidiness of all though this would, no doubt, 

 be hotly denied as bars to a contrary conclusion. In regard to 

 the site chosen, they could also appeal to the evidence, asserting, 

 with a proper pride, that no young pipit, any more than any young 

 lark, had ever been beholden for its upbringing to the cast-off nest 

 of another species. So, again, a dislike to the damp situations 

 affected by several of the wagtails could be confessed with a becoming 



1 Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, iii. 



- As quoted in Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, iii. 



3 Nor in Savoy. It is to be noted that whilst Bailly's description and rendering of the cry 

 is sufficiently similar to the above to make it clear that there has been no confusion of species, 

 he does not confine its utterance either to once or twice, but gives it as " piet, piet, piet-piet, 

 piet-pie t-piet. ' ' 



4 See ante, p. 48. 



2M 



