270 WAGTAILS AND PIPITS 



degree of superiority, and whilst in the skylark's partiality for grass- 

 land and cornfield, some differentiation might be frankly admitted, 

 a rapprochement, at any rate, if not a full reconciliation between the 

 tastes of the two families "might it not be said of the family 

 tastes ?" would be fondly insisted on. How far, however, the 

 eloquence of pipit counsel should be allowed, upon so grave an issue, 

 to prevail, it is for the reader, after a careful and unimpassioned * 

 consideration of the evidence, to decide. 



Turning to the more general, or, as we may call them, the non- 

 domestic habits of the pipits, it does not appear that these differ more 

 essentially from those of the larks than the ones we have been con- 

 sidering. True it is that the meadow-pipit more affects barren, waste 

 lands, and dank, marshy fields than he does those more cultivated 

 territories over which the skylark soars and sings. But, besides that 

 some skylarks seem to prefer these wilder and more melancholy 

 scenes perhaps that they can glad them more so, on the other side 

 also, the distinction does not always obtain, being, more especially, in 

 abeyance during the period of migration. Here, indeed, in England, 

 our little Pratensis, in spite of the way we have treated him, stays with 

 us always ; but then he must really be ours. A certain number of 

 individuals, who have only joined us in the spring, leave us again in 

 the autumn, and this is still more the case in lands whose winter is 

 harder for a pipit to bear than is our own. In these, as the time 

 of departure approaches, habits, hitherto prevalent, become modified, 

 and old longings return. Always of a social, if of a quietly social 

 disposition for there is nothing " loud " about the family a closer 

 and more extended intercourse with his fellow-migrants is now, to 

 every meadow-pipit, a thing of necessity. Banded into flocks whose 

 numbers may be sometimes compared with those of starlings, these 

 small creatures, once so inconspicuous, become, all at once, a note- 

 worthy feature of the landscape. In flight which, though swift 

 enough in reality, looks always more hurried than swift, they whirl 



1 See ante, Classified Notes, as a help towards this. 



