PA SSERES. MO TA O ILL1PJE.
A n t h u s e ic h a e d i , Vieillot*.
RICHARD’S P IPIT.
Anthus Ricardi.
T h i s fine species was first made known as a visitor to
England by Vigors, who at a meeting of the Zoological
Club of the Linnean Society, 13th April, 1824 f, exhibited a
specimen that was netted alive in the fields to the north
of London in October, 1812 (Zool. Journ. i. p. 280).
Rennie, in his edition of Montagu’s £ Ornithological Dictionary,’
published in 1831, noticed another taken at Oxford ;
and Mr. Proctor, of Durham, informed me that he shot
a specimen, 13tli February, 1832, near Howick, on the
* Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat. Ed. 2, xxvi. p. 491 (1818).
+ In tlie course of that year he seems to have obtained a second specimen
(sec Fleming, Br. Anim. p. 75) which he also exhibited at a meeting of the
Linnean Society, 2nd November, 1824, but the paper then read, as now printed
in the Society’s ‘Transactions’ (xiv. p. 556) does not allude to this species.
As Mr. Kippist, having kindly searched, reports that the original manuscript
does not exist in the Society’s archives, the point is scarcely to be settled.
Northumbrian coast, which went into the collection of Mr.
Gisborne, of Amxall Lodge, Staffordshire. Mr. Gould in
his ‘ Birds of Europe ’ mentioned two instances of the
capture of this species near London in the spring of 1836,
and the British Museum, in 1837, obtained a specimen,
which is said to have heen killed at Bermondsey and
may have been one of these last.
Since then some fifty examples have been recorded as
obtained in England*, so that any particular notice of each
occurrence is needless. By far the larger proportion of
these have been taken in Sussex, near Brighton; hut
Cornwall including the Scilly Isles, Devonshire and Norfolk
have each contributed a good share, while the bird has also
been procured in Kent. Shropshire is the only inland
county to be added to those before mentioned, and it is to
be remarked that nearly all the English examples have
been obtained on or near the sea-coast. Several of them
have been taken, after an interval of some years, in precisely
the same spots, shewing that there is something in
the nature of such localities to make them attractive to the
species. It would seem to visit England in September or
October and to remain here if permitted till the following
spring. One is said to have been seen so late as May (Zool.
p. 9719), but most of the occurrences have certainly taken
place in autumn or early winter, and there is not the
slightest evidence pointing to an arrival here in spring.
Between the years 1851 and 1864 only one capture seems
to have been made (Nat. 1853, p. 157), and again from
1869 to the present time there has been a similar dearth
of records, but between those two periods upwards of twenty
are said to have been taken, while doubtless many more had
the luck to escape notice.
The habits of this species present some other unexplained
peculiarities. Though it has been many times met with in
many countries of Europe, as will immediately be shewn
* Mr. Edward says (Zool. p. 6596) he once saw it in Banffshire, hut the specimen
does not seem to have heen procured, and there is no other record of its
occurrence in Scotland.