4 
MEADOW-PIPIT. 
eastern counties these birds seldom resort to particularly marshy situations in which to rear their brood, 
choosing, as a rule, a dry spot on a turf-wall or a rush-grown mound rising above the general level. On the 
grouse-moors and on the steep mountain-sides in the northern counties, this Pipit is plentifully distributed, 
being occasionally seen at an elevation considerably over one thousand feet in height. A ledge of rock or a 
tuft of grass serves to ward off the cutting winds from their unfledged young. 
The eggs of this species vary greatly, though not to the same extent as those of the Tree-Pipit, many shades 
of red, brown, and grey being frequently met with. On June 1, 1870, 1 drove a bird off her nest in the long grass 
on the marsh-wall round Heigham Sounds, in Norfolk. On examining the five eggs on which she was sitting, 
I discovered they were unlike any I had previously met with. There was not the slightest doubt as to the 
identity of the bird, as she rose at my feet; and the nest was unmistakable. In order, however, that there should 
he no possibility of an error, I approached the spot again after a short interval, and captured in a butterfly-net 
a female Meadow-Pipit. The eggs were utterly unlike those of any British bird. The ground was a pale blue 
(the same shade as the egg of the Wheatear), spotted with moderately sized markings of a pale violet or bluish 
grey, a darker spot of the same tint showing here and there. The whole five were much alike, the size of the 
markings and the thickness and regularity of the spots on each individual shell being almost precisely similar. 
In shape they were somewhat longer than the usual egg of Anthus pratensis. On examining them again 
today (August 31, 1882) I find their shades have but very slightly faded during the lapse of eleven years and 
a quarter. 
The nest of the Meadow-Pipit is frequently chosen by the Cuckoo as the cradle in which it deposits its 
egg. I have noticed this fact repeatedly on the downs of Sussex, and also on several occasions in the 
Highlands. 
