THE MEADOW PIPIT 



his short yet pleasing song. This is usually uttered in the 

 air, the bird at intervals rising from the ground in silence 

 for fifty feet or more, then returning to the earth, singing 

 as he comes, on outspread wings and tail. Except in the 

 actual nesting season this Pipit is more or less sociable, or 

 even gregarious, and even in summer numbers may be 

 found breeding within a small area of suitable ground. 

 After the young are reared parties and small flocks 

 wander far and wide in quest of feeding-grounds, and in 

 autumn especially these frequent many of the cabbage- 

 and turnip- fields in suburban London. Here they may be 

 flushed from the growing crops, rising and taking short 

 flights from one part of the cover to another, uttering a 

 singularly plaintive feep as they do so. In severe weather 

 they often resort to manure-heaps, farmsteads, and the 

 exposed banks of any open water. Snowstorms are often 

 fatal to them. With the advance of spring the parties 

 break up and scatter over their breeding-places. The 

 food of this Pipit consists of insects, small worms, snails, 

 grubs, tiny seeds, and even occasionally grain. The 

 breeding season commences in April, and the nest is always 

 placed on the ground, sheltered by a small stone, a bush, 

 a tuft of grass, or rushes, and frequently amongst heather, 

 bilberry wires, or long herbage on a bank. It is loosely 

 made, cup-shaped, of dry grass, moss, and bits of surround- 

 ing herbage, lined with fine grass and hair. The four, 

 five, or six eggs are white suffused with brown, or pale 

 green mottled, spotted, and speckled with brown of 

 various shades. 



The adult Meadow Pipit has the upper parts olive- 

 brown, the feathers having darker centres, except on the 

 rump and upper tail-coverts ; the under parts are greyish 

 white, suffused with olive on the flanks ; the neck, breast, 

 and flanks streaked with blackish brown ; some of the 

 wing-coverts are marked with dull white, and the outer 

 tail-feathers are also marked obliquely with white. Bill 



