MEADOW PIPIT. 429 



grass generally : it is constructed externally of dried bents, 

 lined with finer bents, and some hairs : the eggs are from 

 four to six in number, of a reddish brown colour, mottled 

 over with darker brown ; the length of the egg nine lines 

 by seven lines in breadth. The parent bird has been ob- 

 served to feign being wounded for the purpose of with- 

 drawing attention from its nest. W. Thompson, Esq. in 

 his valuable communications on the Natural History of 

 Ireland,* mentions that " his friend at Oromac has fre- 

 quently found the nest of the Meadow Pipit on the banks 

 of water-courses and drains, as well as on the ground in 

 fields. One which was known to him at the side of a 

 drain was discovered by some bird-nesting boys, who 

 pulled the grass away that concealed it. On visiting it 

 the next day, he observed a quantity of withered grass 

 laid regularly across the nest ; on removing this, which, 

 from its contrast in colour with the surrounding herbage, 

 he considered must have been placed there as a mark by 

 the boys, the bird flew off the nest ; and on his return- 

 ing the following day, he found the grass similarly placed, 

 and perceived a small aperture beneath it by which the 

 bird took its departure, thus indicating that the screen, 

 which harmonised so ill with the surrounding verdure, had 

 been brought there by the bird itself. The same gentle- 

 man once introduced the egg of a Hedge Accentor into a 

 Meadow Pipit's nest, containing two of its own eggs ; but 

 after a third egg was laid, the nest was abandoned." The 

 desertion of the nest was probably induced by the visits 

 of the observer, rather than by the introduction of the 

 strange egg, as the egg of the Cuckoo is more frequently 

 deposited and hatched in the nest of the Meadow Pipit 

 than in that of any other bird. 



* Magazine of Zoology and Botany, and Annals of Natural History. 



