46 ROCK PIPIT 
cavernous recesses, as the Ooig Mooar and the ‘ Hall,’ near 
the Chasms, where it flits high over the deep green water 
that fills the cave. It flies and runs about the piers and 
sea-walls of Douglas, and seeks its food among the pools 
and little weedy reefs below them, in company with Ringed 
Plovers and Purple Sandpipers, a very tame and familiar 
but little-noticed bird. The dull colouring of its plumage 
blends well with the dark olive of the wracks (Fwct) 
which cover the tide-rocks; had it the striking colours 
of the Robin or Chaffinch, it would likely be one of the 
favourite birds of the country. 
The Rock Pipit cannot be said to be gregarious, and it 
is rare to find more than one or two together. 
By the middle of March the Rock Pipit is in full song, 
and may constantly, as described by Mr. Graves, be seen 
rising from its perch on a rock, clump of grass, or fence, to 
a short distance in the air, and then, with outspread and 
quivering wings, descending, still singing, to its perch 
again, where the song is finished. Mr. Graves has seen 
two in full song from a wire fence within a hundred yards 
of each other. 
The nest is formed in nooks near the sea, often under 
the shelter of a stone or beneath a tuft of grass on a rocky 
ledge. A nest on the Calf of Man was beautifully hidden 
behind a plant of sea-spleenwort in a recess low down 
under the cliffs, and another at Stroin Vuigh was also 
sheltered by the fronds of the same fern. On the 28th 
August 1902, while rowing along the coast between Lag 
ny Keilley and the Ushtey, our attention was attracted by 
the excitement of a pair of Rock Pipits on the land, and 
my boatman found an incomplete nest, which evidently 
belonged to them, under a stone on the turfy summit of a 
small rock-stack, the opening of the cavity sheltered by the 
large leaves of a tuft of sea-beet. About a month later, on 
