PIPITS, OR TITLARKS. 41 



leaving again in September. Although arriving in considerable numbers, 

 the birds do not keep together, but separate to search out eligible 

 nesting-places, the first comers consisting altogether of males, who 

 having found comfortable lodgings invite their lady friends to share, 

 and assist in furnishing them, and then may be heard the song, low 

 and sweet, with but little variety, consisting chiefly of the monosyllables 

 tsee, tsee, tsee, not rapidly uttered, but rather dwelt on, as if the singer 

 thought them very musical, and liked to linger over these simple notes, 

 which he repeats again and again. The practical ear may detect this 

 pleasing melody amid the louder minstrelsy of the woods and fields 

 from May to July, after which it is seldom heard. If the birds are 

 closely watched, a pair of them may be seen collecting materials for 

 their nest, which is formed of fine root fibres, fine grass, and perhaps 

 a little moss, and lined with wool or feathers; it is placed on the 

 ground generally, but sometimes amid the thick lower branches of 

 a bush or dwarf tree; the chosen spot is the skirt of a wood or 

 plantation, where the necessary covert may be found ; and here, while 

 the female sits upon the five or six greyish white eggs, which are 

 clouded and spotted with reddish or purplish brown, the male bird 

 expresses his joy by the more than usually rapid utterance of the 

 low sweet tsee, tsee, tsee, and by mounting with quivering wings a short 

 distance into the air, and making a sort of half-way house of some 

 projecting branch; then coming down again with a graceful curve, 

 with the wings still or but slightly moved, and outspread tail, nearly 

 always stopping on the same branch on which it had rested when 

 ascending, for a short time before returning to its low-lying nest and 

 waiting mate. When the young have to be fed, both birds are very 

 busy indeed, there is little time for singing or frolicking in the air 

 then. Flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, worms, or any kind of insect 

 food obtainable, must be sought for, and brought to the little gaping 

 bills that keep asking for more. Some part of the supply the parents 

 must swallow for their own subsistence, bat they also eat various kinds 

 of seeds, which they do not give to their young, who require soft animal 

 food as most young birds do. 



But what manner of bird is our Pipit ? Slender in form, and sober 

 in colour, measuring about six inches and a half in length, weighing 

 about five drachms and three quarters, with a clear brown bill streaked 

 along the edges with yellow, at the base of it are a few short bristly 

 feathers, such as most Larks and Pipits have. Brown, grey, and white, 

 with tinges of green and yellow, are the colours of its plumage, the 

 white breast having the characteristic spots of its family very distinctly 

 marked. The bird stands well up on its long, slender, yellowish 



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