ADAPTATION TO HAUNTS 159 



active quality. The bird may be small, or a rapid flier, or 

 very clever, or social ; or it may show its brilliance only on 

 occasions of sex-display. Almost always there is some 

 quality or habit which counteracts, or tends to counteract, 

 conspicuousness. In the majority of cases the bird's 

 plumage is elusive, especially when the creature is at rest. 

 A bird is very often just like a sample of the surrounding 

 scenery of moor or meadow, hedgerow or wood. It is 

 difficult to exaggerate the perfection of the garment of 

 invisibility which protects a brooding woodcock or curlew 

 among the withered debris of the wood or the bracken and 

 heather of the moor. Protective coloration is not the 

 exception, but the rule. 



