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What is worthy of notice, it employs the nests of its own nearest relations, the larks, pipits, finches, sparrows, &c. an arrangement we may suppose to be connected in some way with the early history of the whole group of species a family or clan sacrifice, as it were, for the benefit of a less fortunate member."
He for only the male is so brightly colored is coal-black with a dull-red back. I saw these birds on December 1 near Barilloche, out on the bare Patagonian plains. They behaved like pipits or longspurs, running actively over the ground in the same manner and showing the same restlessness and the same kind of flight.
But whereas pipits are inconspicuous, the red-backs at once attracted attention by the contrast between their bold coloring and the grayish or yellowish tones of the ground along which they ran. The silver-bill tyrant, however, is much more conspicuous; I saw it in the same neighborhood as the red-back and also in many other places. The male is jet-black, with white bill and wings.
The snow would slip from the fell-side, and leave dripping rock and clammy bent, and the river would break its frosty silence and pour a mighty grey-green flood to the sea. The swans and geese began to fly northward, and the pipits woke among the birches.
The pipits are members of the wagtail family. They have not the lively colouring of the wagtails, being clothed, like skylarks, in homely brown, spotted or streaked with dark brown or black. They have the wagtail trick of wagging the tail, but they perform the action in a half-hearted manner.
In this way the creatures are being extirpated, and one can foresee that when hares and rabbits are no more, and even the small birds of the plain, larks, pipits, wheatears, stonechats, and whincats, have vanished, the hunters in khaki will take to the chase of yet smaller creatures crane-flies and butterflies and dragon-flies, and even the fantastic, elusive hover-flies which the hunters of little game will perhaps think the most entertaining fly of all.
After wandering on for an hour, disturbing Longspurs, Snowbirds, Pipits, Groundsquirrel, and Caribou, I came on a creature that gave me new thrills of pleasure. It was only a Polar Hare, the second we had seen; but its very scarceness here, at least this year, gave it unusual interest, and the Hare itself helped the feeling by letting me get near it to study, sketch, and photograph.
There are few land-birds on Canvey Island, because there are few trees. Some greenfinches, a whinchat or two, almost no pipits or larks, and very few sparrows. The shore-birds are numerous and increasing, for the Essex County Council strictly protect all the eggs and birds during the breeding season.
In addition to their ordinary clothing these girls wore a raw sheepskin on their shoulders, to catch the oozing sea-water, and they looked strangely wild and seal-like with the salt caked upon their lips and wreaths of seaweed in their hair. For the rest of my walk I saw no living thing but one flock of curlews, and a few pipits hiding among the stones.
The Tree Pipit is mentioned in Professor Ansted's list, but no letters marking the distribution of the species amongst the Islands are given. There is no specimen of this or either of the other Pipits in the Museum. MEADOW PIPIT. Anthus pratensis, Linnaeus. French, "Le cujelier," "Pipit des prés," "Pipit Farlouse."
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