146 



or rather run, instead of hopping— their delicate little legs being often in such 

 swift motion as hardly to be seen as they go ; and they all feed chiefly upon 

 insects, and love our English streams and meadows for the never-failing abundance 

 of good things found there. 



Yet, in spite of all these points of likeness, there are also many points of 

 difiference, even in the habits of these species, as well as in the colour of their 

 plumage ; and in what I have to say about them, I shall dwell chiefly on these. 

 I shall now take them one by one, beginning with the best known, the pied wag- 

 tail, reserving for my last five minutes a last stray remark on the habits of the 

 whole group. 



1. The pied wagtail will always have a special interest for British 

 naturalists, for it is one of the very few birds which are rarely to be met with 

 except in our islands. But, just as the red grouse, which is the only bird entirely 

 peculiar to Great Britain, has cousins closely resembling it on the Continent, so 

 too the pied wagtail. If a traveller sets out on a journey due eastward from 

 England to Asia, he will see no more of our pied wagtail after he has left the 

 north-west coast of France or Belgium. There he may chance to find a few ; 

 but further east he will find only the white wagtail ; a bird not often seen with 

 us, which is called white only, I suppose, because it is not so black as its cousin. 

 This bird, which seems to have almost exactly the same habits as ours, will keep 

 him company by rivers and streams until he passes the boundary of Europe ; 

 beyond that a very similar bird, called the Siberian or white-winged white wag- 

 tail, which winters in India, will greet him, and, if he pushes on to Japan, he will 

 find yet a fourth variety. I say variety ; for indeed all these are really, no doubt, 

 forms of the same original species, varying a little in plumage, as might be 

 expected of birds living in districts so remote from each other. Of these our 

 British bird seems to be the darkest in colour, following the rule that the vicinity 

 of what Lord Beaconsfield once called ' a melancholy ocean ' gradually darkens 

 the tints of many birds — but all these birds are really so much alike that no one 

 with an unpractised eye would be likely to distinguish them. And ' one sees so 

 many intermediate forms,' says Mr. Tait, in " the Ibis," ' that it is in some cases 

 impossible to determine with confidence to which species the bird belongs.' Oar 

 pied wagtail does not, however, confine itself entirely to Great Britain : though 

 many stay here all the year, a large number leave us every autumn, and seem to 

 make their way along the western coast of France, to Spain and Portugal. On 

 the west coast of Portugal, a writer in the Ibis has recently told us (Vol. v.. No. 18, 

 p. 186) they are abundant on the shore in winter ; and he has seen them, when 

 lately arrived, pursued and attacked by the resident white wagtails, which looked 

 on them as intruders. As regards their journey in this country before they reach 

 the sea, I have one or two facts to tell you which will give some idea of the course 

 taken by those birds which sjiend their summer in this part of the country and in 

 Wales. 



Three or four years ago, a friend of mine, a master at Westward Ho College 

 in North Devon, wrote to me just at the end of September o a strange immigration 

 of pied wagtails which had occurred there a day or two before. It was a warm 



