THE TREE PIPIT AND HIS RELATIONS.
ULLEN clouds hang low over flooded meadows and muddy 1...j roads. Everything is soaked. The foliage has a beaten look. Truly an unpropitious May morning ! On such a day the birds are more prone to silence than to song. Perhaps a black- bird, least energetic of songsters, gives out a few hesitating notes. The tiny willow warbler may indulge in one of his descending cadences, starting bravely, and continuing hopefully, yet there
comes just a suggestion of heart-break at the very end. His song is sweet and frail, but it is never joyous. Most joy songs are for sunny hours. Yet in spite of gloomy sky and sodden fields one inconspicuous little brown bird lets us know that damp, provided it is not really chill damp, has not the power to silence his cheerful song. You listen and quickly recognize his voice as that of the tree pipit, though it has a suggestion of the skylark's song. You look at the top of that old bare tree expecting to see the pipit sitting there, but every branch is empty ; the singer left the topmost one twa seconds
ago to rise into the air : for raising your eyes a lin% higher you see him ascending. He circles to aid him in climbing. He has reached a height of some forty to fifty feet, but since he is not a
skylark he does not soar until he becomes a mere speck against the clouds. He poises for a second with widely spread wings, then throws up his tail fully expanded, and song and descent begin. He comes slowly down. His song is rapid at first, as if he feared the distance might not last it out. It is not easy to syllabize any bird's song, much less that of the tree pipit, for he often varies it as he drops. "
zit-zit " it begins. Now he is half-way down and the speed increases, but the song slackens, and is pitched differently, Tsweet-ier, sweet-zer, tweet, sweet, weet " as he parachutes In a series of graceful curves to the ground. He frequently descends to the tree from which he started. He may even rise
from a low bush or a fence to a tree top, sing there awhile ; then, as if scorning so low a platform, fling himself upward to a
taller tree and sing again before making the final soar and musical descent. In a minute or less he has recovered his breath and soars anew. He is always ascending in silence, descending with song. He does it again and again, as if the little wings and throat could never tire.
Books told me that the tree pipit descended close to his nest, and in my early days of bird study I wasted much time in tramping the herbage round the place where he had last alighted, but success never crowned the effort, nor has any tree pipit's nest found by me been as artfully concealed by herbage as, for instance, that of the whinchat. A bank near trees is a favourite site. Often the ground behind forms a natural half-dome for the nest which is made of roots, grass, and moss, lined with fine grass and hair. The four to six eggs are a puzzle to the novice, for they vary greatly in colour and markings. The variety is so great as to baffle description, but the eggs are always densely mottled, and nearly always show a tinge of either purple-red or dark brownish red. If you flush the hen when incubation is advanced she will not go far, but walks anxiously about as long as you stay. As she does not try to hide you have a good oppor-
tunity of admiring her graceful build and the beautiful effect of many of her upper feathers having a dark centre. The cock
has even more clearly marked spots than the hen. Both have white on the outer tail feathers, which again reminds one of the lark.
The meadow pipit is so much like the tree pipit as to be easily confused with it. The former is slightly smaller and has pale brown legs, while the latter has flesh-coloured legs. Of these two retiring birds the meadow pipit is perhaps the less shy and difficult of approach. The other day a meadow pipit clinging to a bare perpendicular twig on a level with my eye let me come so near that it was possible to sae clearly the one infallible distinguishing mark. This bird had the hind claw longer than the toe, a feature not found in the tree pipit. Meadow pipits are to be seen on low trees, but their natural home is on the ground, where their long claws help them to trip along with graceful ease. They, too, deliver their song in the air. It consists of " chu-wick, chu-wick," repeated several times in the ascent, and " see-see " repeated in the descent. The ascent is not nearly so high as that of the tree pipit, nor the descent as impressive. The meadow pipit likes wide open fields, and does not ask for them to be dry. It will nest on marshy land under grass tussocks among the rushes which shelter the mallard and the redshank. We all know it to be the nest most frequently chosen by the cuckoo when she wishes to secure foster-parents for her contribution to the next generation. The meadow pipit's eggs, like those of the tree pipit, are closely mottled, but In them the mottling is a cold brown, never reddish.
These two difierent pipits have a cousin, found nearly all round onr coast lines. It is the one seashore bird which sings. As a rule it does this on the wing. It is very like the meadow pipit, but a little larger. Like its cousins it has the undulating flight common to the wagtails. All the pipits also use that movement of the tail which charac- terizes the wagtails. Hence it is that modern scientists group them with the wagtails in one family of Motacilliche, not as was formerly done with the larks, Alaudidm. It is interesting to note the local names given to the pipits. They are all titlarks. The tree pipit has tree lark, grasshopper lark, short-heeled field lark among the ten local names it can boast of. These show how the popular mind has associated it with the larks. The meadow pipit is bog lark, also meadow lark. The rock pipit is sea lark, rock lark, and shore lark. These folk-names will perpetuate the older classification. EMILY NEWLING.
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