THE SHORE-PIPIT. 327 



the tide recedes to some distance, and where there are low 

 rocks, or benty downs, where it can nestle. In those situ- 

 ations it is very plentiful, though always solitary. It finds 

 the principal part of its food at and within the high-water 

 mark ; but never in the water, except in those shallow pools 

 in which it can easily wade. It has thus a perennial pasture 

 like the dipper in the brawling rivers ; and so does not quit 

 it for any other haunt, during any time of the year. Its 

 manners, its song in spring, and its chirp at all times, bear a 

 very close resemblance to those of the last species. It runs 

 with great ease along the sand, picking up its food ; and 

 when alarmed, it hops onward with a bouncing flight. In 

 the early part of the season, when most of the shore birds 

 have gone inland to nestle, and the sea birds also have gone 

 to their favourite rocks and islands, the pipit is almost the 

 only winged creature that is met with upon long stretches of 

 beach ; and in passing along during a May mist, when the 

 sea is hissing unseen on the one hand, and the land obscured 

 on the other, the cry of the pipit adds not a little to the 

 melancholy of the scene ; but on the other hand, it is pleasant 

 to see so small a bird bobbing about and braving the storm 

 in the winter. As the haunt of the shore-pipit changes less 

 in temperature with the seasons than that of most birds, the 

 seasonal changes of its plumage are not so considerable. The 

 nest is formed of bents, or other plants growing near the sea, 

 and lined with finer fibres, or with hair, if its haunts are such 

 that that substance is within its reach. The eggs are not 

 more than five, yellowish-grey with reddish-brown spots, 

 especially at the thick ends ; but there are, from the constant 

 supply of food, and the uniformity of the temperature, two 

 broods or more in the course of the year. The shore-pipit 

 does not frequent the wild and precipitous parts of the coast, 

 neither is it ever observed at any considerable distance from 

 the sea. 



