244 OUR NATIVE SONGSTEKS. 



it, picking up the insects ■s\4th gi'eat quickness. 

 But autumn arrives, and the bird, which has sung 

 its song by the grassy-bordered stream, or on the 

 most cold and barren liills, retreats to more shel- 

 tered meadows, or to turnip-fields, or similar 

 places ; great numbers congi'egating there, and 

 becoming, after the autumnal months, so much 

 brighter and more deeply coloured, that this 

 pipit has often, at this season, been mistaken for 

 another species. 



Besides the mode of flight, whose quivering 

 motion has been described, the pipit, when not 

 singing, has another which consists of successive 

 jerks, at no very great height from the gi-ound ; 

 and it sometimes sings, too, while hovering over 

 its nest, and occasionally when perched on a 

 stone. Its nest is made of tlie dried stems of 

 grasses, or other plants, and lined with hair. 

 It is hidden on the gi'ound, under a clump of 

 leaves or coarse gi'ass, or beneath the boughs of 

 a low bush ; and the ])ale-brown eggs are thickly 

 speckled with dark purplish brown. The pipit 

 is called P?}??*, in French ; the Germans call it 

 Piep ; and the Danes, Pibe. It is one of the 

 commonest of our native songsters, and bird- 



