THE PIPITS 277 



powers are so highly developed, and whose flight is sufficiently swift 

 to prevent their being out-distanced. These factors would still count 

 for much, both in scanning and quartering the ground ; but, con- 

 sidering the many opportunities which pipits, no less than larks, 

 have of concealing themselves amidst grass and other herbage, con- 

 sidering also that they are only one amongst many other kinds of small 

 birds, equally, or even in a greater degree, liable to the same attacks, 

 it would perhaps be more pertinent to ask, what can be the need of 

 specially protective coloration in their case ? The above remarks, if 

 not final in regard to the subject which has introduced them, may 

 serve, at any rate, as an enumeration and partial consideration of the 

 principal enemies to which pipits, in much the same degree as larks, 

 are liable to fall a prey. 



