THE PIPITS 



Associated with the Pipits are the Wagtails, but 

 as none of these birds are songsters of any merit 

 we may discard their consideration here. Wagtails 

 sing but little, and at most their music is but a 

 short and twittering refrain, not sufficiently pro- 

 nounced to arrest popular attention or to constitute 

 the bird a "favourite songster" in the sense in 

 which that expression is used in the present 

 volume. The Pipits, although very Lark-like in 

 their appearance and habits, are but remotely allied 

 to that group of birds, one of the most important 

 differences being the unscutellated hind part of the 

 tarsus, which in the Larks is covered with a series 

 of plates. This confusion is still popularly main- 

 tained by the application of the term *' Titlark " to 

 some of the Pipits. About forty species of Pipits 

 are recognized by ornithologists, and these are 

 distributed throughout the world, with the exception 

 of Oceania, or the islands of the Pacific. The Pipits 

 are almost without exception birds of brown or 

 inconspicuous tints, but in South Africa a small 

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