280 
ANTHID.E. 
We have always found it impossible to reconcile, with our 
English Rock Pipit, the Pipit spioncelle of the first and 
second parts of Teinininck’s (although considered by 
that author as the same), on account of the very different 
localities spoken of as inhabited by the spioncelle. We are 
happy to find that Temrainck has himself ascertained and 
corrected his error in the fourth volume of his Manuel, in 
which he gives an exact description of our indigenous species 
under the title of Anthus obscurus. From this author it 
appears that the Rock Pipit inhabits the island of Feroe, and 
the coasts of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. It is also 
found in Holland, and along the western maritime borders 
of France. In England, as elsewhere, its residence is in¬ 
variably upon the borders of the sea, seldom penetrating 
further inland than the salt marshes that in some places 
are found upon the coast. So seldom does this species 
w^ander from the immediate coast, that the occurrence of 
several individuals upon the banks of the river Deben in 
Suffolk, at the distance of eight or nine miles direct from 
the sea, was considered worthy of being noted in the me¬ 
morandums of a friend, a good ornithologist, as a remarkable 
circumstance. 
The food of the Rock Pipit consists of worms and marine 
insects, which it seeks among sea-weeds and other plants 
that grow upon the shores, or are thrown up by the waves. 
The nest of this species is placed upon the shore, or upon 
the rocks, or banks, at a little elevation above it: it is 
composed of grasses, or the dry remains of marine plants. 
The eggs, usually five in number, vary considerably in appear¬ 
ance. Some are yellowish-white in the ground-colour, 
mottled over with grey and dusky brown : in some specimens 
the brown so much prevails as nearly to cover the eggs, 
which then present a mottled surface of two dark shades. 
