THE PIPITS 275 



that, namely, of distinguishing the roosting from the flocking habits 

 of birds. Perhaps, strictly speaking, the former should be considered 

 as a part of the latter, in which case all or most that there is to say of 

 the Anthidce, in their roosting capacity, has already been said. When 

 it is stated that these birds roost on the ground, stunted herbage of 

 various kinds such as heather must be understood as included in 

 this term. This, under the circumstances, would often be unavoidable, 

 but the matrix of an excavated turf or clod, or a natural depression in 

 the soil, is constantly chosen, and would probably always be preferred. 

 In their food, as well as in their feeding habits, the Anthidce are, 

 upon the whole, more wagtails than larks that is to say, more insect- 

 eaters than seed-eaters. Yet the difference between them and the 

 latter birds is not strikingly great, and it is possible that, were we to 

 step from British soil, and pass in review the pipits of the world, it 

 would be found to diminish. I am not aware, however, that any of 

 the family have developed a type of bill, on the one hand, so specially 

 adapted for insect food as are the elongated, thin ones of certain of 

 the Alaudidce that, as it would seem, eat seeds indifferently with 

 insects, or, on the other, as the short or " heavy " variety the adapta- 

 tion of which to a seed diet is evident characteristic of some larks, 

 which, apparently, affect insects as freely as seeds. The significance 

 of this distinction between the two families would, it is true, be more 

 apparent, were the key to such differences in the rostral form, at 

 present assumed to be obvious, to become, by some contrary turn of 

 the evidence, logical also. 1 Yet this may be said, that whilst perhaps 

 there is no pipit capable of catching insects with the same dexterity 

 as a slender-billed lark may be supposed to be master of, so, con- 

 versely, not one of them can have the power of seizing and manipulat- 

 ing seeds so deftly as, upon the theory, this office ought to be performed 

 by any of the more characteristically heavy-billed representatives of 

 the allied family. Some may, perhaps, feel inclined to go just one 

 step farther, but I am anxious not to overstate the case. 



1 See ante, in the chapter on Larks. 



