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down she is there, quick as a flash and away, while 

 the cock sits on a neighbouring bough and uses 

 language only suited to a tliree-bottle buck of the 

 old school, but their *' fratchings " are of no greater 

 moment than gnat bites on a summer's evening. 



If there is one word to describe the Wagtail it is 

 " daintiness." I never look at them without thinking 

 of what the poet Samuel Rogers said of Lady Parker. 

 "She is so elegant that when she goes to heaven she 

 will find no difference, but that her ankles are thinner 

 than the angels', and her head better dressed" ; or of 

 what another friend in South Africa recently wrote to 

 me about a lady of color who had donned the gar- 

 ments of civilization, including black stockings with 

 open-work sides— these she lined with ted calico, and^ 

 as my friend remarked, "she didn't forget to hold her 

 skirts up neither!" Well, the little Wagtail always 

 reminds me of a lady running very swiftly over a 

 muddy crossing, and holding her skirts well up. 



My Wagtails spend most of their time on the 

 ground, though they do perch, and generally roost on 

 a branch at night, but most of all do they love water, 

 as their name implies, and mine are never so happy as 

 when they are running about their little lake, and 

 jumping up from time to time to snap a gnat that has 

 incautiously come too near. 



I quite hope another year, if all goes well, to be 

 able to record the successful nesting of the Water 

 Wagtail. The chance of doing something exciting is 

 what I never have strength of mind to resist. 



A friend came the other day to see the birds, and 

 when he beheld the Wagtails he exclaimed scornfully 

 •* What the hangment are you keeping common 

 Wagtails for? I call it a beastly shame." " Well," I 

 said, " we can't all keep rarities, and besides," I added, 

 rather spitefully I am afraid, " perhaps you couldn't 

 keep even Wagtails. It is not so easy as it looks. It is 



