8 ANTHID.E. 



treated in the same manner as larks, but require, in addition, 

 water to bathe, and an occasional supply of insects ; they 

 like society, and are a pleasing acquisition in an aviary. They 

 generally perch and roost upon the ground. 



The Meadow Pipit, terrestrial in all its habits, is a ground 

 building bird, and usually constructs its nest upon grass land, 

 frequently upon heaths and moors, where bog-myrtle and 

 cotton-grass abound. It is usually placed in a slight depres- 

 sion in the ground, or beside a sheltering clod of earth. The 

 component materials of the nest are very simple, being little 

 more than dry grasses or hay, intermixed sometimes with a 

 very little moss, and lined with finer grasses and a few hairs : 

 it resembles very closely the nest of the sky-lark. From its 

 retired situation, being frequently placed in boggy ground, 

 and from the inconspicuous nature of the materials, this nest 

 is often difficult to find. 



The eggs of this species, although varying much in colour, 

 are generally uniform in size and shape, being about nine 

 lines long, and six and a half in diameter. The most usual 

 tint of the ground colour is reddish-white, more or less full ; 

 over the whole surface of which is distributed an irregular net- 

 work of a deeper shade of the same colour. In some speci- 

 mens the ground-colour is pale hair-brown, similarly marked 

 with a darker shade. Other specimens are mottled and 

 marked so fully with brown as perfectly to resemble the 

 darkest specimens of the eggs of the rock-pipit : while 

 others again are marked with brown upon a pale blue ground, 

 like the one represented in the plate. This latter specimen 

 bears so general a resemblance, in colour and markings, to 

 some eggs of the pied-wagtail, that we should have referred it 

 to that species, had not the parent bird, a Meadow Pipit, 

 been taken upon the nest. This similarity of character in 

 the appearance of their eggs shows how nearly allied are the 

 pipits to the wagtails. 



