162 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



sun draws out tlieir objectionable odours, yet here is tlie 

 wagtail's feast, and its little friend the titlark comes in 

 for a share. As the tide falls, however, and the rocks 

 become bare, another field of research is opened to its 

 view, and a fierce slaughter is commenced amongst the 

 insect atoms that settle on those slippery weed-covered 

 stones, now exposed for a time. From these it runs 

 along the wet sands, following up the little waves, and 

 even wading at times, but, as Macgillivray has most accu- 

 rately noticed, so rapid are its actions, and so slight 

 its frame, that it leaves no impress of its little feet, and 

 the tail, though scarcely ever still, is carried too high to 

 be draggled by the soil. Messrs. Gurney and Fisher, in 

 the " Zoologist" for 1847, mention the arrival by a south 

 wind in March of a '^ considerable number of pied wag- 

 tails, several of which were seen to alight in a field at 

 Caister," and small flocks are invariably seen in the 

 course of that month feeding on the newly ploughed 

 lands, or chasing each other over the ridges. There 

 is also no doubt that very considerable quantities 

 appear regularly on our coasts in autumn, resting 

 for a short time, and then proceeding on their south- 

 ward journey. On the 16th of November, 1858, and 

 on two subsequent occasions, whilst snipe-shooting at 

 Surlingham, I found, towards the afternoon, large flights 

 of pied wag-tails dispersed all over the broad, many of 

 them chnging to the reed stems, like the bearded tits, 

 and smaller bodies were continually passing overhead or 

 stopping to join their companions. From the locality 

 in which I found them, and from the fact of their 

 immediately preceding continuous and severe frosts, I 

 have no doubt that these were migratory arrivals, about 

 to rest for the night on their way inland, their numbers 

 and extreme tameness reminding me of similar flights 

 observed in the South of England, on their way north- 

 ward, in the early spring. Wliilst staying at Teigmnouth, 



