PLATE I 

 TREE PIPIT. Antkus trivialis 



May 3i$/, 1893. This nest was photographed on a bank beside a path in 

 a strip of wood near Doune, Perthshire. It was concealed beneath a little 

 tuft of grass among ferns, wood-sorrel, and wild hyacinths, and contained five 

 very highly incubated eggs, which were of the very dark-red type. 



As we approached the nest the bird flew out and crossed the path, 

 tumbling along on the ground with wings and tail outspread pretending to 

 be wounded, and we saw her running about among the grass near us all 

 the time I was photographing the nest. The male was perched in the top 

 of a very tall oak tree close by and took very little interest in our movements, 

 indulging in little snatches of song, or leaving his perch to chase some insect 

 like a fly-catcher, always returning to his favourite perch. 



The nest of the Tree Pipit is very difficult to find. It is quite easy 

 to locate the nest within twenty yards or so, by the perch of the male 

 which is usually on the top of the nearest tree, but the female takes 

 great care how she approaches the nest, dropping down some way from 

 it and walking about in the grass, apparently feeding, but always drawing 

 nearer to the nest, often quite hidden among the grass, so that the un- 

 initiated may walk forward and put her up, when lo, there is no nest. I 

 was very nearly beaten by one nest in the grass just in front of the house. 

 A large oak tree grew opposite the door, and there was a dead tree-stump 

 close to it; I saw both birds several times together, and the male always 

 returned to his perch after feeding about for a little. The female would 

 fly a few yards and alight on the stump, then she would hop down and 

 begin running away through the grass till she was ten or twelve yards away 

 from it and then disappear among the tufts of coarse grass. I put that bird 

 up twenty or thirty times in different places before it occurred to me to look 

 at the root of the stump, and there was the nest! 



'35 



