THE SINGING BIRDS. 



V7 



" The Tree Pipit," says Mr. Yarrell, " is a summer visitor to this country, arriving about the 

 third week in April, and frequents the enclosed and wooded districts of England. It is not 

 uncommon around London, and I have observed it frequently in the highly-cultivated and wooded 

 parts of Kent. The male has a pretty song, perhaps more attractive from the manner in which it is 

 given than the quality of the song itself. He generally sings while perched on the top of a bush, or 

 one of the upper branches of an elm-tree, standing in a hedgerow, from which, if watched for a short 

 time, he will be seen to ascend on quivering wing about as high again as the tree, then, stretching out 



THE ROCK PIPIT {Antilles petrosus). 



his wings and expanding his tail, he descends slowly by a half-circle, singing the whole time, to the 

 branch from which he started, or the top of the nearest other tree ; and, so constant is this habit 

 with him, that if the observer does not approach too near to alarm him, the bird may be seen to 

 perform this same evolution twenty times in half an hour, and I have witnessed it most frequently 

 during and after a warm May shower." " The Tree Pipit," continues Mr. Yarrell, " is found in all 

 the wooded and cultivated districts of the southern counties of England, but is seldom met with in 

 open unenclosed country. It is comparatively rare in Cornwall ; not very numerous in either North 

 or South Wales ; and some doubts are still entertained whether it extends its range to Ireland." 



In a communication from Mr. Weir (who observed the birds in East Lothian) to Mr. Macgillivray, 

 he says : — " The Tree Pipits generally make their appearance here about the beginning of May, and 



