BIRDS OF THE RIVER 359 



swiftness of their movements is at once noticeable. 

 In their more extended flights, too, their mode of 

 progression is different and more airily light than 

 that of most of the smaller birds. It consists of a 

 series of long undulations, the bird rising into the 

 air and drooping again with closed wings in a 

 succession of delicate curves. 



The Wagtails are strictly insectivorous, and may 

 be classed with the least harmful as well as the most 

 beautiful of British birds. 



Although the Pied Wagtail is resident in the 

 three kingdoms, considerable seasonal movements 

 occur within the British Isles, and numbers cross 

 the English Channel in autumn, returning in 

 spring. On the Continent the British type appears 

 to be largely confined to countries in the extreme 

 west, its place in other latitudes being taken by a 

 greyer form. 



The Grey Wagtail is so strikingly handsome a 

 bird that one can only wonder how its sober and 

 inadequate title came to be applied to it. Indeed, 

 with the exception of the Kingfisher, the plumage 

 of few British birds is so varied and beautiful. 



This species is not often seen about the village or 

 farmstead, and might appropriately be named the 

 W^ater Wagtail, a term usually applied to the Pied, 

 for it is certainly the most consistently aquatic of its 

 race. Indeed, it seems to avoid all prosaic surround- 

 ings, and would appear to select the most romantic 

 glades by the river, where its slight, graceful form 

 and delicate yellow and ashen-grey plumage, con- 



