The Tree Pipit. 173 



above all the timbre of its voice, show its affinity equally 

 near to the latter. In some of its habits it is wonderfully 

 like the woodlark, especially that of perching on the 

 topmost twigs of a tree usually a tall one thence soar- 

 ing upward while it sings. The song is neither so sweet 

 nor varied as that of wood or skylark, yet unmistakably 

 like them in tone ; so much so that one hearing it, with- 

 out seeing the bird, would know he was listening to a 

 songster allied to the Alaudince. Nor is its flight either 

 so high or prolonged as theirs. It shoots rapidly upward, 

 in a line nearly direct, and at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees, but only for a distance of some sixty or seventy 

 yards. There, soaring for a few seconds, singing all the 

 while, it comes back to earth in a spiral curve, or, more 

 correct to say, to the top branches of a tree, though not 

 always the same from which it started off. In the last 

 twenty or thirty yards of its descent it exhibits a shape, 

 and gives utterance to a note, both peculiarly interesting. 

 The wings are at first widely extended, as is also the tail, 

 without beat or other observable motion, they are then 

 gradually drawn in towards the body, till the bird, seen 

 against a clear sky, in shape resembles the head of an 

 arrow, the wings representing the barbs ; and while thus 

 it utters a plaintive piping note, a very cry of distress, 

 some ten or a dozen times repeated. 



Although more of a tree-percher than its near con- 

 gener, the meadow pipit (A. arvensis), it seems to affect 

 places in the proximity of water, further likening it to 

 the wagtails. A pair have just brought forth young in a 

 tract of rather marshy pasture some two hundred yards 

 from my house, the nest being at the bottom of the grass 

 under a bunch of rushes. It was not found till the young 

 birds were nearly full fledged, then only three being in it. 



