the months of summer should not occasionally stray out of its course and visit the British Islands. Tins
country, however, seems hut ill adopted for a lengthened sojourn, its hahits being peculiar, and the situations
it affects not being numerous in our humid climate; for it is in open sterile districts, and such hot
and parched localities as occur in many parts of France, Spain, and Italy, that the bird finds a congenial
home, just as the Meadow-Pipit does in the soft boggy parts of our moorlands. How different are the habits
of the two species, and how instructive is a knowledge of them! This difference at once accounts for the
very opposite styles of their colouring, one being dressed in dust-coloured feathers of a hue very similar to
that of the sand over which it runs, the other in an olive-green costume, assimilating in tint to the grassy
herbage of the moorlands, the swamps, and the hillsides it frequents.
The Tawny Pipit, which is more commonly known by the name of Anthus rufesceiis than by that of
A. campestris, first assigned to it, is strictly a summer visitant to most parts of the European continent,
particularly France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It proceeds as far north as Southern Sweden, is much
more numerous in North Africa, and is equally abundant in Palestine, Persia, Scinde, and the peninsula of
India, where Mr. Jerdon states it is found in all suitable places, and adds, “ I have noticed that it is most
abundant in the Deccan, at Mhow in Central India, and on the Eastern Ghauts; it is rare in the Carnatic.
Blytli has it from Midnapore and the north-western provinces. It frequents barren, open, stony land, and
is never found in rich pastures or meadows.”1 - • ‘ . ;
Bailly states that in Savoy it is a bird of passage, and is never very common V“ it arrives m April and returns
again during the first fortnight of October. In spring it generally appears singly, in couples, or in threes,
and in autumn in small flocks of from three to five. A few remain and breed among small stony hillocks
thinly clothed with shrubs and heath, the nest being constructed early in May, at the foot of a small shrub;
a tuft of grass, or other plants; it is composed of small pieces of moss, dried grasses, and roots, lined with
wool, horsehair, and vegetable fibres; the eggs are five or six in number, white, or bluish white, sprinkled
with small spots, streaks, and dashes of brown, violet, and brownish red. During the period of incubation
the male diligently feeds the female, and continues to solace her with his song, consisting of one or two
notes repeated fifteen or twenty times in succession while obliquely ascending to a moderate height and
dropping again almost vertically to the ground; these notes are less frequently heard after the young are
hatched, and by the middle of July cease entirely. About the end of August or the beginning of September
the Tawny Pipit resorts to the plains and the ploughed lauds, retiring during the middle or hotter part of
the day to the shelter of the hills. Its food consists of maggots, small worms, millepedes, small spiders,
and grasshoppers, flies and other insects caught while flying, and small snails seized from the stalks of
grasses. It evinces bnt little fear of man, and on being disturbed merely runs with great swiftness to a
short distance, and then stops as if to ascertain the cause of its fear. When a small number travel in company,
they frequently call to each other; by imitating this call onr bird-catchers easily entice them into
their traps.”
M. Dubois, in his work on the Birds of Belgium, informs us that the Tawny Pipit evinces a “ preference
for extensive dry plains, where but few trees or plants occur, and shuns high grass and bushes. It is
almost always on the ground, sometimes perched upon a- hillock or stone, or a bush, but is rarely found
on trees. Is very lively, but shy or coy in its movements. The singular song of the male is composed of
a series of short, uniform, and melancholy notes which it utters while flying. The nest is placed in slight
hollows of the ground, sheltered by a bush. The young quit the nest before they can fly; for they can
always run sufficiently well to hide themselves in the grass, corn, or brushwood.
Degland states that it sometimes constructs its nest in the crevices of rocks, that it runs both quickly and
gracefully, that it rarely perches on trees, and that its cry is very like that of the Short-toed Lark.
The Rev. Mr. Tristram informed Dr. Bree that the egg of this bird is very variable, though not so much
so as that of Anthus arboreus. Some of his specimens approach those of the Pied Wagtail; in others the
russet spots are as large, thick, and bright as in Sylvia galactodes, which egg this variety greatly resembles.
During the breeding-season the feathers of the upper surface of the male are light brown in the centre,
so largely margined with greyish buff that the darker tint is but little perceptible, and the whole presents a
mealy appearance; wings dark brown, all the feathers except the primaries broadly margined with bright
buff, with a reddish tinge on those bordering the coverts and secondaries; primaries brown, narrowly edged
with greyish buff; two centre tail-feathers dark brown, bordered with greyish buff; two outer tail-feathers
buffy white, with a broad stripe of dark brown down the margin of the inner web, and a narrow interrupted
line of the same hue on the outer web towards the tip ; the remaining tail-feathers dark brown ; over the
eye a streak of buffy white; ear-coverts dark brown; a small moustache-like streak of brown on each side
beneath the eye; all the under surface very pale buff, washed with a deeper tint across the breast and down
the flanks; a few- faint streaks of brown on the sides of the neck and breast; irides brown; upper mandible
blackish brown, lower mandible yellowish ; tarsi ancl feet flesh-colour.
The figures are of the natural size. The beetle is the Cicindela campestris.