PIPITS. 



435 



river-"beds, and chains of swampy lakes, full of tall sedges and reeds and water- 

 plants of various kinds, and half-concealed by willow-bushes and alders, whilst far 

 away in the distance the horizon is bounded on every side by the forest. These 

 oases of grass in the boundless forest are the paradise of Richard's pipit. As I 

 wandered away from the town this bird became more common. I found it 

 difficult to shoot them on the ground, as they ran about on the grass ; but I soon 

 obtained as many examples as I wanted, as they hovered in the air almost like the 

 kestrel. . . . Dybowski found them equally common on the plateaus near Lake 

 Baikal, at an elevation of five thousand feet above the level of the sea. They arrive 

 about the middle of May, and build their nests upon the ground in the grass. They 

 usually choose a hollow in the meadows, such as the footprint in the soft earth of 

 a cow or a horse. The first nest is made in the first half of June, and frequently a 

 second brood is reared, the eggs being laid in the second half of July. The nests 

 are said to be very difficult to find. The male keeps watch, and, on the approach 

 of danger, he gives the alarm to the female, who leaves the nest and runs along 

 the ground for some distance, when she rises and joins the male in endeavouring 

 to entice the intruder from the nest with anxious cries. If their little manoeuvres 

 are successful, the female drops to the ground and runs back to the nest through 

 the grass. In this district the nest of Richard's pipit is the one usually selected 

 by the cuckoo in which to deposit her eggs. They leave for their winter quarters 

 late in September." The eggs vary in number, from four to six; some are 

 profusely spotted all over with minute specks and blotches of greenish brown 

 upon a pale greenish white ground-colour, whilst in others the spots are reddish 

 brown upon a pinkish white ground-colour. The adult male has the upper-parts 

 nearly uniform brown, beneath buffish white darkest on the breast, which is 

 streaked with dark brown. The sexes are identical. Richard's pipit may always 

 be known by the long metatarsus and greatly developed claw of the first toe. A 

 figure of this bird, as well as of the tawny pipit, is given in the woodcut on p. 434. 

 The haunts of the tawny pipit (A. campestris) are chiefly in 

 desert-regions, at least through a large portion of its range. In 

 Europe it is chiefly known as a summer visitor to certain favoured districts, such 

 as the sierras of Spain and Portugal, the sand-dunes of the Baltic coast-line, and 

 sparingly on high ground in Central France. It is a shy and wary species, even 

 on the breeding-ground. Mr. Seebohm found it very common in Greece, where it 

 is the only pipit that nests. It there prefers the open plains, being especially 

 common on the undulating prairie country, half rock and half grass and heath, 

 between Athens and Marathon. It runs on the ground witli great agility, and has 

 a restless zigzag flight, which appears less undulating than that of the meadow- 

 pipit. The nest, according to Mr. Seebohm, "is sometimes under a bush, 

 sometimes beneath a tuft of dense herbage, or under the shelter of a clod of 

 earth ; at others in the open plain amongst the growing crops, and often near a 

 dried-up streamlet on a bank beside a convenient stone. It is made of dry 

 grass, often intermixed with a few stems of coarse herbage or straws, together 

 with roots, and lined with horsehair." The eggs are white in ground-colour, 

 profusely spotted with reddish brown and underlying spots of grey. The tawny 

 pipit migrates from its breeding-ground in August, at which season it has occa- 



