INDIAN WAGTAILS 29 



nicest soubrette could not raise her dress more coquet- 

 tishly, the best-taught dancer not move with more 

 graceful pas than the pretty bather as she lifts her 

 train and dainty feet. Suddenly she throws herself, 

 with a jump and a bound, into the air, to catch the 

 circling gnat ; and now should be seen the beating of 

 wings, the darting hither and thither, the balancing 

 and the shakes and the allegretto that her tail keeps 

 time to. Nothing can surpass it in lightness. In fine, of 

 all the little feathered people, none, except the swallow, 

 is more graceful, fuller of movement, more adroit or 

 insinuating, than the wagtail." 



Wagtails are essentially birds of the temperate zone. 

 They remind us of a fact that we who dwell in the 

 tropics are apt to forget, namely, that there are some 

 beautiful birds found outside the torrid zone. 



Fourteen species of wagtail occur in India, but the 

 majority of them leave us to breed. They bring up 

 their famihes in cool Kashmir, on the chilly, wind- 

 swept heights of Thibet, or even in glacial Siberia, and 

 visit India only in the winter when their native land 

 becomes too frigid even for them. 



Many of the migratory wagtails do not show them- 

 selves in the southern portion of the peninsula, being 

 rightly of opinion that the climate of Upper India is 

 not far from perfect during the winter months. 



There is, however, one species — the most lovable 

 of them all — the pied-wagtail (Motacilla maderas- 

 patensis) — which has discovered that it is possible to 

 live in the plains of India throughout the year ; and, 

 having made this discovery, it has decided that the 



