100 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



MEADOW-PIPIT. 



Anthus pratensis. 



The Meadow-Pipit remains with us all the year round, though 

 great additions arrive in April, and it may then he met with 

 in all unenclosed parts of the county, frequenting as well the 

 Downs, the dry open heaths and commons, as the marshy 

 meadows of the levels bordering our rivers. After spreading 

 through the country in suitable spots, generally in pairs, it 

 reappears in large flocks on the coast in August, and by the 

 end of September most of them have departed for the winter. 

 It builds on the ground, sometimes among the corn, a foot 

 or two within the edge of a corn-field, in a farrow, or any 

 little depression on the surface, often on the open down or 

 common, placing it under the shelter of a tuft of grass or 

 other herbage.. The nest is composed of coarse and fine 

 grass, lined with hair and fibrous roots. The Cuckoo is very 

 partial to it for the nursery of its tyrannical bantling. It is 

 generally known as the Titlark. A very long and interesting 

 account of the migration of the Meadow-Pipit may be found 

 in Mr. Booth's ' Rough Notes.' 



There is a very small variety of the Meadow-Pipit, if in- 

 deed it be not another species, found in various places in the 

 county. I have myself particularly observed it on the ex- 

 tensive tract of old sea-beach between the harbour and the 

 sea at Shoreham, and from that very place a clutch of four 

 eggs, on which the bird was sitting, though they were not 

 incubated, was taken by Mr. Gorham, the Rector of Shipley, 

 on May 17th, 1880. Three of these he kindly gave to me ; 

 they were all four similar in colour and size ; the measure- 

 ments of my three were H by ^ of an inch. Now the average 



