THE TEEE-PIPIT. 95 



a Blue-tit found a hole for its nest last year; this also was 

 in the inside of the bridge, and close to the up-line. This 

 bridge is a good place from which to watch the Tree-pipit, 

 and listen to its charming song. All down the line, wherever 

 it passes a wood or a succession of tall elms and ashes, these 

 little greyish-brown birds build their nest on or close to the 

 grassy banks, and take their station on the trees or the 

 telegraph-wires to watch, to sing, and to enjoy themselves. A 

 favourite plan of theirs is to utter their bright canary-like song 

 from the very top twig of an elm, then to rise in the air, 

 higher and higher, keeping up their energies by a quick 

 succession of sweet shrill notes, till they begin to descend in 

 a beautiful curve, the legs hanging down, the tail expanded and 

 inclined upwards, and the notes getting quicker and quicker 

 as they near the telegraph-wires or the next tree-top. When 

 they reach the perching-place, it ceases altogether. So far as 

 I have noticed, the one part of the song is given when the 

 bird is on the tree, the other when it is on the wing. The 

 perching-song, if I may call it so, is possessed by no other kind 

 of Pipit ; but the notes uttered on the wing are much the same 

 with all the species. 



The young student of birds may do well to concentrate his 

 attention for awhile on the Pipits, and on their near relations, 

 the Larks and the Wagtails. These three seem to form a clearly- 

 defined group ; and though in the latest scientific classification 

 the Larks have been removed to some distance from the other 

 two (which form a single family of MotacMidae), it must be 

 borne in mind that this is in consequence only of a single though 



