TITS, PIPITS, AND LARKS 



113 



All the family specially frequent the 

 neighbourhood of water, but the Pied is 

 the most ubiquitous and least fastidious 

 in this respect, and may frequently be 

 observed upon freshly ploughed fields in 

 comparatively dry districts. 

 The Yellow Wagtail chiefly 

 confines itself to marshy locali- 

 ties, and the Grey to moun- 

 tainous districts and running 

 streams. The lovely blending 

 of the bluish-grey upper parts, 

 black garget, bright yellow 

 under parts, white-edged tail 

 and wings, render it one of the 

 most beautiful of British birds. 



The cinematograph has al- 

 ready lent aid to ornithology, 

 one of the Messrs. Kearton's 

 films bearing witness to the 

 relationship existing between 

 the Wagtails and Pipits by 

 portraying a Meadow Pipit 

 in the act of tail-wagging. 

 Both name and note will assist 

 us in distinguishing this bird 

 of pasture and uncultivated 

 land from the two other less 



it may be found on muddy as well as 

 on rocky shores. The Tree Pipit is 

 a regular summer migrant, and has a 

 pretty song. It frequents the outskirts 

 of woodlands for preference, and may 



GREY WAGTAIL ON NEST. 



widely distributed representatives of the 

 genus ; for although the feeble song 

 and complaining, mournful call-notes, 

 "peep, peep," of both Meadow and Rock 

 Pipit are somewhat similar, the latter 

 bird never leaves the coast, although 

 15 



ONG-TAILED TIT AND NEST. 



be identified by Yarrell's 

 oft - quoted description : 

 " He sometimes sings while 

 sitting on the top of a 

 bush or one of the upper 

 branches of a tall tree ; 

 but most generally, start- 

 ing from such a perch, 

 he will be seen to ascend 

 on quivering wings about 

 as high again as the tree ; 

 then, steadying his wings, 

 expanding his tail, and letting his legs 

 hang straight down, he descends slowly 

 by a half-circle, singing the whole time, 

 to the same branch, or to the top 

 of some other tree near by, without 

 ever alighting on the ground mean- 



