380 • THE ZOOLOGIST. 



fully adult male of the Rock Pipit, like those of its very near allies the 

 Water Pipit and the Pennsylvanian Pipit, has the under parts unspotted ; 

 but, from the rarity of such examples in collections, he was disposed to 

 think that the fully adult plumage was only attained by very old birds in 

 exceptionally sunny climes. But to me the rarity of these unspotted birds 

 seems to be too great even to render the above solution a likely one; 

 although we know that very old examples of A. cervimis have a tendency 

 to lose the markings on the under parts. I made the following notes on 

 A. rupestris in Norwegian Museums: — Christiania: Six examples in sum- 

 mer dress (June and July), adult, had under parts well spotted, though in 

 one considerably and in another case a good deal less than ours, all a little 

 less, and all with ground colour white. They are much greyer on upper 

 parts than ours. No rufous tint. Three examples, autumn and winter, 

 very like ours, though hardly as dusky on upper parts, lighter and less con- 

 fusedly marked underneath. Trondhjem Museum : One, a grey bird ; 

 ground colour of under parts whiter than ours, but well marked ; light 

 eye-stripe apparent. Tromso Museum : Adult female, Tromso, July 31st, is 

 a grey bird, white ground to under parts, fairly well and distinctly marked 

 underneath and no viuous flush, light eye-stripe. These birds must surely 

 represent the ordinary form of Rock Pipit found on the Norwegian coast. 

 And it seems more reasonable to refer examples found on the north coast 

 some way to the eastward (long. 30° 50' E.), agreeing in colour pretty 

 closely with A. spipoletta, to the latter species. With regard to the colour 

 of the outer tail-feathers, which presents the only difficulty, I may mention 

 that I possess a skin of a Pipit, apparently A. spipoletta, labelled "Tiflis, 

 May 15th, female," in which, while the patch on the outer tail-feather is 

 very much lighter than that of A. obscurus, it is by no means pure white 

 (as in south-western examples of A. spijjoletta), but tinged, except at the 

 extreme tip, with smoky brown. Wheelwright, who generally gave full and 

 careful descriptions of the colours of birds the plumage of which had 

 exceptional interest, does not help us much in the matter. He describes 

 A. rupestris (' Ten Years in Sweden,' p. 322) thus: — "Colour above dark 

 ash-grey, with dark brown spots, especially on the back ; below whitish, 

 with a rusty yellow tinge on the breast and belly, and grey-brown spots ; 

 only the outermost tail-feather with a whitish edge." He adds that it can 

 always be distinguished from the British Rock Pipit thus : the spots on the 

 breast in the latter are large and occupy one-half of the ground colour of 

 the breast, while in rupestris they are more distinct, and very small, not 

 occupying more than one-fourth of the ground colour ; and moreover the 

 ground plumage of rupestris is considerably richer. There is also a pale spot 

 on the auriculars of rupestris not found in obscurus. Seebohm states truly 

 that the Rock Pipit is little more than a coast form of the Water or Alpine 

 Pipit. And while remarking that the European Alpine Pipit (A. spipoletta) 



