Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
it4 
twelve inches high, in exactly a similar place to that in which 
the Sky-Lark often builds, made of dry grass lined with hair. 
Most. — On the ground, generally concealed under a clod of 
earth or tuft of herbage, or under a bush ; sometimes in a bank 
near a dried-up streamlet, or even in the open plains among the 
growing crops. It is composed of dry grass, often intermixed 
with a few stems of coarse herbage or straws, together with 
roots, and lined with horse-hair, although in many cases fine 
roots alone serve the purpose. 
Eggs. — From four to six in number. The general colour is 
very light, when compared with that of the eggs of the other 
European Pipits. The ground-colour is white or greenish- 
white, and the spotting varies in intensity and degree. In 
some eggs the whole surface is covered with tiny dots of black 
or blackish-brown, the grey underlying dots being scarcely per- 
ceptible. On those which have the ground-colour greenish- 
white, the spots are of a greenish-brown tint, and on those eggs 
which incline to a creamy-white ground, the overlying spots are 
reddish-brown, and, with the grey underlying spots, are dis 
tributed all over the egg. Axis, o - 8-o - g5 inch ; diam., o’65-o'7. 
THE WATER-PIPIT. ANTHUS SP1POLETTA. 
Alauda spinoletta, Linn., S. N., i., p. 288 (1766). 
A11 thus spipoletta, Newt. ed. Yarr., i., p. 581 (1874; horn, 
emend.); B. O. U. List Br. B., p. 34(1883); Sharpe, 
B. Brit. Cat. Mus., x., p. 592 (1885) ; Saunders, Man., 
p. 133 (1889) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Br. B., pt. xviii. (1891). 
Anthus spinoletta, Dresser, B. Eur., iii., p. 335, pi. 140 (1874); 
Seeb., Br. B., ii., p. 248 (1884). 
Adult Hale in Breeding Plumage. — Above light brown, the 
mantle mottled with dusky centres to the feathers ; lower back 
and rump uniform; head and hind-neck .ashy-grey, slightly 
streaked with dusky on the crown ; a broad whitish eyebrow ; 
cheeks and under surface of body pale rosy, extending over the 
abdomen, without any streaks upon the chest ; lower abdomen 
and under tail-coverts whitish ; wing-coverts tipped with dull 
white ; eyebrows and lores isabelline ; flanks slightly streaked 
with brown ; light pattern of outer tail-feather white. Total 
