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NOTES ON WAGTAILS. 



[By Mr. W. W. Fo^vlee, :M. A., Sub-Recior of Lincoln College, Oxford.] 



I do not know that I could choose a pleasanter subject than this for a paper 

 to be read among Herefordshire meadows. Here, I think I may answer for it, 

 all the three kind of wagtails are to be found, about which I am going to say 

 something ; and though I do not suppose that all who hear me have distinguished 

 them exactly, yet we all know what a water-wagtail is, and there must be few of 

 us who have not sometimes paused in our walks or our fishing excursions to admire 

 their symmetry of form, their beauty of colouring, their graceful flight, their 

 unobtrusive confidence, and their constant unresting activity — an activity which 

 some mysterious grace of mental build never suffers to degenerate into 

 fidgettiness. 



It is curious that a group of birds so clearly marked off, in outward 

 appearance at least, from others, should be to learned ornithologists matter of 

 confusion and conflict ; but such is the case even at the present day. It is true 

 that the first great writer on English birds, John Willughby, who wrote in the 

 middle of the 17th century, distinguished accurately our three common species ; 

 but, a century later. White of Selborne, who knew the South of England only, 

 was by no means clear about them ; and since his time, now that the wagtails of 

 all Europe, and indeed of the whole world, have come under careful observation, 

 endless trouble has arisen, both in defining and in naming species. I am not 

 going to lead you into this labyrinth, out of which, I am free to confess. I should 

 not easily find my own way ; but I shall refer once or twice to Continental 

 wagtails, in case by chance any traveller abroad should come across tliem and 

 confuse them with our English birds. 



The three kinds with which I have to do are— 1, the pied wagtail, i.e., the 

 common black and white bird, which we all know well ; 2, the yellow wagtail of 

 the meadows, which comes to us in the spring and leaves us in the autumn ; 3, the 

 grey wagtail of the streams, which can always be at once distinguished from the 

 others by its very long tail. All these three resemble each other closely in their 

 habits, as well as in their build ; they all, for example, love the neighbourhood of 

 water, they all have the same peculiar flight — a graceful flight consisting of suc- 

 cessive waves, or upward and downward curves — which enables us to detect them 

 even at a long distance ; they all have the same quality of voice, a short and 

 shrill but musical whistle, usually consisting of a double note, which cannot for a 

 moment be confused with the note of any other bird, unless, indeed, it be with 

 that of their nearest relatives, the pipits ; they all move their tails gently up and 

 down, build their nests on or close to the ground, and lay eggs of which the ground 

 colour is nearly always a pale bluish or brownish white, spotted more or less with 

 brown or grey. They all, too, have the small first primary feather of the wing 

 wanting; but this they share with their cousins, the pipits, whom they resemble 

 very closely in all points but such as are most obvious to the eye. They all walk, 

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