BED-THROATED PIPIT. 101 



reaching his arm over the protecting hassock of grass, dexterously 

 secured the bird in his hand as she was taking flight. I then at 

 once knew, from her pale fawn-coloured throat, that the nest we had 

 found belonged to a species which up to that time I believed had 

 been known in Europe only as an accidental visitant, — the Motacilla 

 cervina of Pallas, the A. rufogularis of Brehm. 



A day or two later Mr. John Wolley returned from a Swan-upping 

 expedition he had been making in the territories of our then imperial 

 enemy. He told us that previous to his starting he had shot, some- 

 where in the neighbourhood of Wadso, an example of a Pipit which 

 had puzzled him a good deal. The bird, which, during his absence, 

 had been kept in a cellar, was produced, unskinned and still fresh, 

 but unfortunately half eaten by mice. A very short inspection served 

 to show that it was a male of the same species as the hen we had, 

 as above mentioned, taken from the nest. Being too much injured to 

 be preserved, it was reluctantly thrown away. 



In a week's time we were quartered at Nyborg, a small settlement 

 at the head of the Waranger Fjord. Here willows and birches grew 

 with far greater luxuriance, even to the water's edge, than lower 

 down the inlet. Some even attained to nearly twice the height of a 

 man, and formed thickets, which, the intervening spaces being ex- 

 ceedingly boggy, were not easily explored. In this secluded spot we 

 found our Ped-throated friend not unplentiful. We could scarcely go 

 out of the house without seeing one, and in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood we procured several more identified nests, making a total 

 of five, and a fine series of nine birds, all, of course, in their breeding 

 plumage. We had also abundant opportunities of watching their 

 habits, and, above all, of contrasting them with those of the Titlark, 

 (A. pratensis,) which was not uncommon in the district, and to 

 which this species has been so unjustly annexed as a variety. The 

 two birds had, according to our observation, an entirely different 

 range; A. pratensis haunting a station less wooded (saving the expres- 

 sion) than that of A. cervinus, which latter we found at times feeding 

 on the sea-shore — a habit we did not there notice the former to 

 indulge in. No one with era's either could for a moment be in 

 doubt about their respective notes. It is true that the full song of 

 A. cervinus did not differ so strikingly from the more feeble per- 

 formance of A. pratensis as does, for instance, the joyous burst of 

 A. arbor eus, but it had an unmistakable resemblance to the louder 

 and perhaps harsher strain of A. obscurus ; and in all cases was 

 sufficiently characteristic for one to be quite certain as to the nature 

 of the performer, even when the individual was not in sight. In a 



