14 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



bird, but its tail looks proportionately short; the plain sandy 

 brown of the upper parts is ver}' distinctive. In the male the 

 throat and upper breast is very slightly marked with dark specks, 

 and rather more so in the female ; but from specimens I have 

 examined I find that individuals differ considerably in this 

 respect. The young are always more marked both below and 

 on the wings — e.g. two Swiss examples in the Bern Museum. 

 They often perched on the single telegraph-wire. Alarm-note, 

 "chit, chit"; song, short, but with a few rather good notes. 



A. spipoletta, Alpine Pipit. — A good many pairs on the 

 Engstlen Alp, but according to F. and Anderegg, not so many as 

 usual, a fact which the latter attributed to the severity of the late 

 winter in the valleys ; but I do not know whether this species 

 winters in Switzerland at all. It extends on the Tannen-band to 

 about 8000 ft. at least ; the lowest elevation at which we saw it 

 was 4000 ft. on the Gerchin Alp, where several pairs were 

 evidently breeding among the tall growth of globe-flowers and 

 large gentians. The song reminds one of the Rock Pipit's, to 

 which I had been listening at Dover, — " zig zig zig zi zi zi zi zi," 

 running down and becoming quicker at the end. Sometimes it has 

 a ring in it, when the notes approach " tink tink tink ti ti ti ti." 

 A short strain was delivered by the bird when sitting on a Plcus 

 ccmbra or a big rock, but the full song only in the air. Mr. Scott 

 Wilson (' Ibis,' 1887) speaks of it as " alighting invariably on 

 the extreme top of any tree near," but I often saw it descend on 

 to a big rock. A bird anxious for its nest will sit as long as you 

 like on a stone or a cedar, and with its monotonous " sic, sic, sic" 

 of alarm. On the Engstlen Alp (in the latter half of June) the 

 the young were probably hatched, from the actions of the birds. 

 Mr. Scott Wilson mentions finding a nest of five eggs on the 10th 

 June the year he was there, and young just hatched on the Furka 

 on the 17th. Some pairs seemed to be nesting among the alpen- 

 roses (just coming into bloom), and the heather in that part of 

 the Engstlen which is studded with large boulder rocks and a few 

 ancient "cedars"; others inhabited rather bare ground, on the 

 grassy and rocky slopes. The adult male is a beautiful bird, very 

 light coloured, with pale grey head, rosy breast, and conspicuous 

 white eye-stripe ; the female rather browner. It is a constant 

 singer ; we heard the song, near and distant, in brilliant sunshine, 

 wreathing mist, and even heavy mountain rain. 



(To be continued.) 



