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had ever before seen, or (as I may be pretty sure) than I shall ever see again. A 

 young friend, an enthusiast, came into my rooms at Oxford the evening before, 

 and told me that he had that day seen some Dunlins on the bank of the Isis, as it 

 flows by the great Port meadow, the property of the Freemen of Oxford, which 

 runs for a mile and a half north-west of the city. As these little sea-shore birds 

 had never been reported there before, I started the next afternoon, hindered and 

 baffled by a strong and bitter wind, which turned to pelting rain, and also by 

 a toothache, which was not improved by the raging of the elements ; but I was 

 well repaid for ray trouble. I found the Dunlins, but I found also, what was far 

 more wonderful and beautiful, the whole length of the river's bank, on the 

 meadow side of it, occupied by countless yellow wagtails. As I walked along, 

 they got up literally from under my feet, for they were sheltering just beneath 

 the meadow's lip, so I came upon them quite unawares. When a turn in the 

 bank gave me a view ahead, I could see the bank spotted yellow all over with 

 their brilliant breast-plumage, for I was walking with the wind, and thej', of 

 course, were facing it, to avoid having their plumage uncomfortably handled by 

 the gusts. They were not afraid of me, and settled down again almost directly, 

 so that my progress was like that of a hay-making machine, which just lifts the 

 hay as it passes, and then lets its settle down again after dallying a moment 

 v/ith the breeze. These birds had clearly only just arrived after their long 

 journey from Africa, and I think they must have come together and unpaired j 

 for their numbers diminished regularly day by day, and at the same time I began 

 to see pairs in their usual places in the neighbourhood, evidently preparing to nest. 

 In a few days they were nearly all distributed over the country-side. Whether 

 they always came thus in troops, and then distribute themselves, is more than I 

 can tell ; but on this occasion it was so, and the fact is new, so far as I know, in 

 the natural history of the bird. 



Of the nesting of the yellow wagtail among the buttercups and marigolds 

 I have no time to speak, but am well content to refer anyone, who does not know 

 the nest, to the specimen of it in Lord Walsingham's collection in the South 

 Kensingrton Museum, where bird and nest are so beautifully concealed in the 

 grass, that you can hardly see them at a first glance. The eggs are very thickly 

 spotted with a yellowish-brown tint, which, no doubt, helps to conceal them 

 among the yellow-green stalks of the grass, and the darker shadows thrown by 

 taller plants. But though they thus hide their nests and eggs with infinite care, 

 in the breeding time it is astonishing how bold this little bird can be ; more than 

 once it has let me approach it within a yard or two, as it runs delicately through 

 the grass picking off invisible insects from the fresh shoots ; and several times I 

 have known it decoy both me and my dog away from the nest, by letting us come 

 very close and then running or half flying a little way on in front. It knows 

 very well that a dog is dangerous, and may find out its young, and I once knew 

 both cock and hen stand up to my dog in such a ludicrously determined way — the 

 cock in front, as if to protect his wife — that I stopped the dog with a sign, and the 

 big and little animals continued to regard each other as if on equal terms, until 

 my irrepressible laughter sent the wagtail off. 



