100 RED-THROATED PIPIT. 



in all seasons and in all plumages, believing that it has nested there. 

 It appears to me that this assertion wants confirmation. According 

 to Temminck it appears accidentally in Sicily and Sardinia, but it 

 appears, nevertheless, that in Sicily and Malta it is frequently seen 

 during its migration. I have seen several specimens of it in the 

 museum at Palermo, and Doderlein enumerates frequent annual cap- 

 tures of it. This Pipit frequently rests upon the trees while flying 

 about them. Its song is a sort of cry, 'zip,' 'zip,' more acute, more 

 silvery, and more frequently repeated than in the Common Pipit. — 

 (Doderlein.) It appears to me probable that it nests in Sicily." 



I have been favoured with the following very interesting account 

 of the discovery of this bird in East Finmark, by Alfred Newton, 

 Esq., of Elvedon, who has also most obligingly sent me the skins, 

 from which my figures are taken : — 



"On the 22nd. of June, 1855, a few days after our arrival at 

 Wadso, in East Finmark, Mr. W. H. Simpson and I, in the course 

 of a birds'-nesting walk to the Tiorth-east of the town, to the distance 

 perhaps of a couple of English miles, came upon a bog, whose 

 appearance held out greater promise to our ornithological appetites 

 than we had hitherto met with in Norway. We had crossed the 

 meadows near the houses, where Temminck's Stint and the Shore 

 Lark were thrilling out their glad notes, and traversed a low ridge 

 of barren moor, when the solicitude of a pair of Golden Plovers 

 plainly told us that they had eggs or young near us. A Dunlin's 

 nest was speedily found, and the bird procured to identify it, for we 

 had hopes of all sorts of waders in that remote district. A little 

 while after, as I was cautiously picking my way over the treacherous 

 ground, I saw a Pipit dart out from beneath my feet, and alight 

 again close by, in a manner which I was sure could only be that 

 of a sitting hen. I had but to step off the grass-grown hillock on 

 which I was standing, to see the nest ensconced in a little nook, 

 half-covered by herbage. But the appearance of the eggs took me 

 by surprise, they were unlike any I knew, of a brown colour indeed, 

 but of a brown so warm, that I could only liken it to that of old 

 mahogany wood, and compare them in my mind with those of the 

 Lapland Bunting. However there was the bird running about so 

 close to me, that with my glass I could see her almost as well 

 as if she had been in my hand. That she was a Pipit was unde- 

 niable, and thoughts of a species till then unseen by me began to 

 dawn upon my imagination. I replaced the eggs without disturbing 

 the nest, and carefully marking the spot, we retired. In half an 

 hour or so we returned, going softly to the place, and Mr. Simpson 



