500 PASSERIFORMES chap. 



parts and greyish or black heads, or almost entirely yellowish. 

 Most Pipits are brown above, with dark streaks, and light edges 

 to the feathers, and are buff, whitish, or rufous below, with tri- 

 angular brown spots. The outer rectrices are usually more or less 

 white, as are sometimes part of the others. Limonidromus, how- 

 ever, is an olive-brown Wagtail with two black crescentic marks 

 below, Anthus Moris a Pipit with a yellow patch on the breast. 

 A. rosaceus has yellow axillaries ; A. tenellus, has the wings, tail, 

 cheeks, and under surface chiefly yellow, with a black pectoral 

 band. The curious genus Macronyx, to its mainly brown colora- 

 tion adds orange, yellow, or pink lower parts with a black gorget, 

 while it shews a marvellous resemblance in other respects to Stur- 

 nella (p. 580) — M. crocea to >S'. magna, M. ameliae to S. defilippii. 

 The biU and feet are usually black in Wagtails ; the former is . 

 brown, with paler mandible and yellowish gape in Pipits, where 

 the feet are brown, yellowish, or reddish. The females are duller, 

 and in the Motacillinae the young are usually browner. 



Wagtails frequent streams and stagnant waters, as in the case of 

 the Pied, White, and Grey Wagtails, Motacilla lugulris, M. alba, 

 and M. melanope ; or they haunt fields of corn and meadows, as 

 in the Blue-headed and Yellow Wagtails, M. flava and M. raii. 

 All the above breed in Britain, but the White and Blue-headed 

 species rarely. The G-rey and the Yellow Wagtails both have yellow 

 breasts, but the former has a grey, the latter an olive, back. 



Pipits prefer open places with rough herbage, as for instance 

 the Meadow-Pipit, Anthus pratensis ; rocky shores, as the Eock- 

 Pipit, A. obscuTus ; or open parts of woods and banks, as the 

 Tree-Pipit, A. trivialis. These nest commonly with us, while the 

 Eed-throated Pipit, A. cervinus, the Tawny Pipit, A. campestris, 

 Eichard's Pipit, A. richardi, and the Water -Pipit, A. spipohtta, 

 visit us occasionally. Flocks are rarely seen, but a few individuals 

 often congregate on the sea-beaches in winter ; the flight is easy, 

 though jerky, and not protracted; that of Wagtails being distinctly 

 undulating. Neocorys soars like a Sky-Lark, and the Tree-Pipit in 

 particular hovers above his perch while singing. The songs of the 

 last-named, and of Motacilla vidua are more Finch-like ; that of 

 Neocorys Lark-like ; those of other species shrill, and less frequent 

 than their repeated call- or alarm-note of chit-chit (Pipits) or 

 chis-sic (Wagtails). The food consists of seeds, insects, worms, 

 small molluscs and crustaceans, usually procured upon the ground, 



