PIPITS. 



433 



The tree - pipits migrate in flocks, and in the spring the birds soon pair, when 

 each couple selects its own area of breeding-ground. The song is melodious, its 

 notes bearing a strong resemblance to those of the canary. Sometimes this pipit 

 sings upon the ground, threading its way furtively through the stems of the hay 

 crop, pouring forth in snatches a volume of melody. Oftener the song is uttered 

 while the bird is perching on one of the larger branches of a tall tree by the 

 roadside, or when on the wing. Mr. Seebohm writes, that it is a pretty sight in 

 early spring to watch the tree-pipit essaying his short nights, as he " springs up 

 from the topmost twig of some branch, and mounts nearly perpendicularly into 

 the air warbling his pretty song. He soon begins to hover in the air, and, as if 

 fatigued by his recent journey, almost immediately descends with tail and wings 

 extended like a parachute, and at last finishes his song on the ground, in a tree, or 

 on a wall. His downward course is in a semi-spiral curve, and he alights where 

 the curve of his flight would make a tangent to the surface of the ground. All 

 this time he has been singing melodiously, the clear, rich, joyous notes following 

 each other in rapid succession, until, as he reaches his perch, he concludes his song 

 with several long-drawn notes expressive of almost impatient anxiety." The tree- 

 pipit nests upon the ground, often upon a bank skirting the edge of a wood ; the 

 nest being always well concealed, and built of dry stems of grass and moss, lined 

 with fine bents and hair. At times several pairs nest on a single strip of moprland, 

 although this is unusual. The eggs vary greatly in colour, but the most usual 

 type has the ground-colour white, so closely suffused with deep brown as to be almost 

 entirely of the latter colour. The young birds leave the nest early and soon 

 become independent of their parents. In autumn these birds flock together, and 

 many are captured by the bird-catchers. The upper-parts of the tree-pipit are 

 brown, the feathers having dark centres, and the lower parts buffish white, pro- 

 fusely spotted with dark brown. 



Upon the waste moorlands of Western Europe the meadow-pipit 

 (A. pratensis), figured in the illustration on p. 431, generally replaces 

 the tree -pipit, and finds a congenial abode among peat-bogs and dreary wastes only 

 redeemed from ugliness by large strips of cotton-grass. A partial resident in most 

 of its haunts, many individuals, merely shifting from the higher grounds to the 

 plains before the arrival of winter, the meadow-pipit loves rough marshy ground 

 and treeless wastes of heather, rearing its young in the most remote and forbidding 

 solitudes. Although its song is inferior in compass to that of the tree-pipit, it is 

 chanted on the wing. The meadow-pipit nests on rough ground and undrained 

 meadows, building a slight nest of dried stems of grass, often in a tussock of 

 herbage, sometimes a very little above the tide-mark on the sea-beach. The eggs 

 are white in ground-colour, closely mottled with brown or brownish grey. The 

 cuckoo is exceedingly fond of depositing her eggs in the meadow-pipit's nest ; and 

 it is diverting to watch a pair of these birds endeavouring to oust one of these 

 undesirable neighbours from their vicinity. It is often assumed that the 

 cuckoo finds a willing dupe in the meadow -pipit, but such is not the case in 

 actual fact. When the cuckoos first arrive in England, and commence to pair and 

 lay, the meadow -pipits assail the strangers with persistency, not only mobbing 

 them with angry cries, but also using physical means to enforce their opinions ; 

 VOL. in. 28 



