Passeres 59 



Palestine ; south of which limits it is practically a 

 bird of passage, for A. bertheloti of Madeira and the 

 Canaries is considered a distinct species. As the 

 Titlark is a plain streaky brown bird with white breast 

 striped with the same colour, it would not be specially 

 conspicuous, were it not for its habit of soaring a little 

 way up in the air to utter its shrill song, and flying 

 restlessly round an intruder while giving vent to the 

 sharp alarm notes, which account for one of its names ; 

 this generally takes place near the nest — a plain cup of 

 bents placed in some depression of a rough grass field, on 

 a bank, or among heather — which contains about five 

 white eggs very thickly marked with brown. The 

 Cuckoo is often reared by this species, and almost 

 invariably so on the moors, which afford the regular 

 food of insects, worms, small moUusks, and seeds in 

 abundance. 



The less demonstrative and more local Tree-Pipit 

 {A. trivialis) differs Httle in appearance, but has a much 

 shorter and more curved hind-toe. It only visits us 

 between April and September, and is not found in the 

 northern islands of Scotland or in Ireland. Except for 

 Iceland and the Faeroes, the foreign range is much as 

 in the last species, though a separable race extends 

 further eastward, to Japan and China. In habits, how- 

 ever, it is absolutely different, for it frequents open 

 copses or the outskirts and rides of woods, where it pours 

 out its sweet notes while sitting, on the tree-tops or while 

 soaring to a considerable height in the air above them. 

 Away from these quarters it is seldom seen, and there 

 it builds a similar nest to its congeners, but lays very 

 remarkable eggs . No British bird, except the Guillemot, 

 shews such a range of coloration in the markings. 



