230 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



flash of the swallows are essentially summer's materiel 

 de secteur. 



The grounds of ancient abbeys and such like pleasant 

 places are a very favourite habitat of the pied wagtail, 

 and when a schoolboy I used regularly to watch one seated 

 on the topmost pinnacle of a ruined building on the way 

 to the games field — occasionally dashing off in short 

 erratic flights from its elevated perch in pursuit of flying 

 insects. Returning to the same scenes a year or so ago, 

 there was a wagtail seated in just the same place and 

 conducting itself in precisely the same way ! 



No doubt this bird was a descendant of the one I so 

 often watched close upon twenty years ago, for wagtails, 

 like swallows and redstarts and many others, return year 

 after year to their most favoured haunts, and year after 

 year are drawn to the same lofty perches when these are 

 of a kind that last. So our children and our children's 

 children may know this bright little bird amidst the scenes 

 and setting familiar to us to-day, and it is refreshing to 

 realize that this creature of our gardens is less transient 

 than the trees and the flowers which beautify them. 



Not all our water wagtails migrate, though most of 

 them leave our homes with the first wild winds of autumn 

 and do not return till March at the earliest. Undoubtedly 

 the majority go abroad, but a fair smattering still remains 

 in this country, frequenting river heads and other running 

 water which does not freeze. It may be taken that 

 wherever there is running water insects exist at all times, 

 though during the coldest weather the wagtails are to be 

 seen obtaining their food after the manner of the dipper, 

 that is, by hunting among the pebbles along the shallows 

 for such insect life as is always there. They are nothing 

 like so expert as the dipper, which hunts in this way the 

 season through, and prefers always to take its meal from 

 below the surface ; the wagtail cannot swim, and does 



