RICHARD^S PIPIT. 335 



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 moi'e common. I found them difficult to shoot 

 on the ground, as they ran about in the grass ; but I soon obtained as 

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

 Kestrel. 



It is absolutely impossible to express the note of this bird on paper ; 

 but some idea of it may be formed by trying to whistle the Italian word 

 degli melodiously and loudly. 



Dybowsky found them equally common on the 'plateaux near Lake 

 Baikal, at an elevation of 5000 feet above the level of the sea. They arrive 

 about the middle of May, and build their nests on 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 iu 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 dis- 

 tance, 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 egg. They leave 

 for their winter-quarters late in September. 



Prjevalsky met with Richard's Pipit breeding on the steppes of Eastern 

 Mongolia, on the north-west frontier of China. He describes it as 

 tolerably abundant from the end of April till the beginning of September, 

 and notices that it avoided the tall and thick grass of the marshes and 

 frequented the wet grassy land sprinkled over with bushes. He states 

 that, when rising in the air, its movements are similar to those of the 

 Meadow-Pipit. 



Richard's Pipit was met with during the breeding-season on the plateaux 

 of Eastern Turkestan by my friend Dr. Scully, whose careful bird-work 

 stands out in marked contrast to so much of our recent slipshod ornitho- 

 logical literature*. He found this bird near Yarkand, in June, frequenting 

 moist ground covered with short grass, and observed young birds at the 

 end of July. He describes its note as it rises from the ground as a sweet 

 soft twitter, and also notices the shyness of the bird. 



* The gold medal for the best example of slipshod literature must he awarded to the 

 volume popularly known as the ' Ibis List of British Birds,' which bristles with errors on 

 almost every page. It is difficult to say which part of the work is the worst. No sort of 

 judgment has been exercised in the selection of species to be included, and birds are 

 admitted or rejected in the most arbitrary manner. The nomenclature adopted follows 



