the 2nd tail-feather is white along the whole of the outer web,
and diagonally white across the inner web almost to the same extent
as the outer one. These two nearly white outer tail-feathers ought to
distinguish it from all other African species excepting A. caffer.
Fig. Dresser, B. of Europe, iii. pi. 137.
o23. A n th u s caffer, SuncL. Lesser Tawny Pipit.
The present species may be looked upon as a small southern form
of the Palasarctic A. campestris, and like that species it has no
distinct emargination on the 5th primary, only the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
being clearly emarginate. Like that species also it has the outer
tail-feather nearly white and the penultimate one almost entirely
white, but in freshly moulted specimens these feathers are sometimes
slightly fulvescent. The breast is always spotted, whereas in A.
campestris it is quite uniform in the breeding plumage, and only the
young birds show spots on the chest. The wing in this species
measures 3'4 to 3'55 inches, the tail 2'5 to 2-6, and the tarsus 1‘05
to 1 15. Examples from the Cape Colony are rather larger than
those from more northern localities.
I t appears to be widely distributed throughout South Africa.
We have shot it ourselves near a vley on the Cape flats, and have
received it from Colesberg, Swellendam, and Kuruman. Mr.
Ortlepp and Mr. Eickard have both met with it near Port Elizabeth,
and from the Transvaal specimens are frequently forwarded. It
was observed as high as the Tati Eiver in Matabele Land by
Mr. Jameson's expedition. Mr. Ayres notes that here it was pretty
generally distributed, but not common anywhere; almost always in
pairs and frequenting the trees. The species was procured at Tete on
the Zambesi by Sir John Kirk, who has also found it near Zanzibar.
Besides the above localities in the Cape Colony we may mention
that Mr. T. C. Atmore has shot the present species at Eland's Post
and Grahamstown in the eastern districts, and that the late Mr.
Erank Oates procured a specimen near Pietermaritzburg. Mr.
Ortlepp sends eggs, which are dirty white spotted with dark and
light brown spots of various sizes. Axis 9^'", diam. 6|"'. This
Pipit places its nest on the ground in some snug well-sheltered
nook, or at the foot of a tuft of grass. It is cup-shaped and neatly
built of dry grass, the outer layers coarse, the next fine, and lined
with hair from the tails of cattle. The eggs are four in number.
With regard to its occurrence in Natal, Majors Butler and
Eeilden and Capt. Eeid give the following note:—“ Common at
the Ingagane Eiver, near Newcastle, where Eeid obtained four
specimens in June and July, feeding on the bare patches round the
stone cattle ‘ kraals.' He also met with it near Ladysmith in
November, and obtained the eggs from two nests on the 18 th and
19th of that month. The nests were cup-shaped, well concealed
among the growing herbage, and resembling those of our common
European Meadow Pipit. The eggs in the first nest, three in
number, are white, with distinct freckles and small blotches of
chocolate-brown, and a more obscure series of ashy grey markings,
most numerous towards the larger end, measuring ‘8 inches by
•6 inches. In the second nest the two eggs have the markings
smaller, but more numerous and of a slightly duller brown."
Adult male—General aspect above mottled, the plumage rather
clear sandy brown with distinct blackish centres to all the feathers,
the margins of the mantle plumes slightly ashy; lower back and
rump perfectly uniform sandy ash-brown; wing-coverts more
strongly mottled than the back, the feathers with blackish bases
and broad sandy rufous margins, edged with creamy whitish at their
ends; inner median and greater coverts, bastard-wing and primary
coverts blackish edged with ashy rufous ; quills blackish, externally
sandy rufous, the primaries narrowly edged with whitish; inner
secondaries very broadly margined with pale sandy buff; upper
tail-coverts sandy brown with dusky brown centres; tail-feathers
blackish, narrowly edged with sandy brown, the two centre feathers
more broadly edged with sandy buff inclining to white near the
tips, the outermost feather almost entirely white, excepting a dusky
patch for two-thirds of the inner web along its edge, the penultimate
tail-feather also for the most part white, but having the dusky
patch on the inner web darker and extending nearer to the tip, the
shaft of this feather being blackish ; head and neck clear sandy brown
mottled with blackish centres to the feathers like the back; lores
dusky; a well-defined eyebrow of yellowish buff; ear-coverts clear
sandy brown, darker on the upper margin; cheeks yellowish buff,
separated from the whitish throat by an indistinct moustachial line
of black; lower throat, fore-neck, breast and flanks bright sandy
buff, a little browner on the latter; centre of the breast and
abdomen isabelline white; on the lower throat and fore-neck some