Length -- 6.38 to 7 inches. About the size of a sparrow.
Male and Female -- Upper parts brown; wings and tail dark
olive-brown; the wing coverts tipped with buff or whitish, and
ends of outer tail feathers white, conspicuous in flight. White
or yellowish eye-ring, and line above the eye. Underneath light
buff brown, with spots on breast and sides, the under parts
being washed with brown of various shades. Feet brown. Hind
toe-nail as long as or longer than the toe.
Range -- North America at large. Winters south of Virginia to
Mexico and beyond.
Migrations -- April. October or November. Common in the United
States, chiefly during the migrations.
The color of this bird varies slightly with age and sex, the under parts
ranging from white through pale rosy brown to a reddish tinge; but at any
season, and under all circumstances, the pipit is a distinctly brown bird,
resembling the water thrushes not in plumage only, but in the comical tail
waggings and jerkings that alone are sufficient to identify it. However the
books may tell us the bird is a wagtail, it certainly possesses two strong
characteristics of true larks: it is a walker, delighting in walking or
running, never hopping over the ground, and it has the angelic habit of
singing as it flies.
During the migrations the pipits are abundant in salt marshes or open
stretches of country inland, that, with lark-like preference, they choose for
feeding grounds. When flushed, all the flock rise together with uncertain
flight, hovering and wheeling about the place, calling down dee-dee, dee-dee
above your head until you have passed on your way, then promptly returning to
the spot from whence they were disturbed. Along the roadsides and pastures,
where two or three birds are frequently seen together, they are too often
mistaken for the vesper sparrows because of their similar size and coloring,
but their easy, graceful walk should distinguish them at once from the hopping
sparrow. They often run to get ahead of some one in the lane, but rarely fly
if they can help it, and then scarcely higher than a fence-rail. Early in
summer they are off for the mountains in the north. Labrador is their chosen
nesting ground, and they are said to place their grassy nest, lined with
lichens or moss, flat upon the ground -- still another lark trait. Their eggs
are chocolate-brown scratched with black.