ROCK-PIPIT. 247 



After the breeding-season the Rock-Pipit often wanders from its 

 accustomed haunts ; and in autumn especially it is often seen on the low- 

 lying marshes on the coasts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Sussex. Many 

 of the birds seen in such situations are probably migrants from the high 

 north, either passing our islands on their journey southwards or staying 

 here for the winter. In low-lying districts their favourite haunts appear 

 to be marshes and shingle-banks and the grassy portions of mud-flats. 

 Early in March these birds generally forsake such places for the more 

 rocky portions of the coast, where their young are reared, or they pass on 

 to similar localities further north. 



The ordinary form of the adult male Rock-Pipit in breeding-plumage 

 has the general colour of the upper parts olive-brown streaked, except on 

 the rump, with dark brown ; over the eye is a dull and indistinct huffish 

 stripe ; the outermost tail-feather on each side has a broad oblique spot 

 of smoke-grey on the inner web ; the chin is dull white, the throat and 

 remainder of the underparts are sandy buff, most pronounced on the breast 

 and shading into olive on the flanks ; the throat, breast, and flanks are 

 streaked with dark brown ; bill dark brown, paler at the base of the lower 

 mandible ; legs, feet, and claws brown ; irides hazel. The female does not 

 difi'er in colour from the male. After the autumn moult the upper parts 

 are much greener, and the underparts more strongly suffused with yellow. 

 Birds of the year resemble adults in autumn plumage, but are more 

 streaked on the flanks, a character which is still more apparent in young 

 in first plumage. The smoke-coloured patch on the outermost tail-feathers 

 in this species will always readily distinguish it from the Water-Pipit, in 

 which this patch is pure white. 



In addition to the form the summer plumage of which has already 

 been described with the streaked sandy-buff underparts, two others occa- 

 sionally occur. One of these^ which I found together with the typical 

 form in the Varanger Fjord, has the ground-colour of the underparts almost 

 pure white, possibly the effect of continuous daylight; the other, 

 which is connected by a series of intermediate examples with the typical 

 form, has the underparts scarcely differing from those of A. spimletta, the 

 streaks being nearly obsolete and the colour of the breast pale chestnut- 

 buff. The explanation of this singular variation can scarcely be referred to 

 interbreeding, because the colour of the outer tail-feathers remains quite 

 typical. It seems to me that the fully adult male of the Rock- Pipit, hke 

 those of its very near allies the Water-Pipit and the renusynanian 

 Pipit, has the underparts unspotted ; but from the rarity of sucn examples 

 in collections, I am disposed to think that the fully adult plumage is only 

 attained by very old birds in exceptionally sunny climes. 



