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When the young are able to fly, I know no more beautiful sight than to 

 Bee them play in a hayfield. True, they are not of the bright yellow their parents 

 wear, and are often almost entirely brown, though they differ greatly one from 

 another ; but their movements in the air it is a constant pleasure to watch. They 

 dance, and spring, and twist, and turn ; now they are on the ground, now high in 

 the air, and now at the other end of the field, and now as suddenly back again. 

 Nor do they limit themselves to the hayfields. I have repeatedly seen them the 

 last few days in osier beds, on raihvay wires, on the top branches of high trees, 

 and even in cornfields, perching on the ears of wheat. So light and sylph-like are 

 they that the corn-stalks were scarcely bent beneath their weight ; and I could 

 not help singling out one of these stalks on which the bird had been resting, and 

 trying to measure with the touch of my finger the pressure of that fairy figure. 

 A week ago I watched a family perched upon the raihvay telegraph wires ; they 

 let me come close underneath them, and performed now and then for my benefit 

 the feat of running along the wires, making use of their hind claw, which is very 

 long, to maintain their hold ; in fact their claws formed a complete circle round 

 the wires. They keep together in families for some time at least after they can 

 fly, and sometimes these families congregate together, for one evening after 

 sunset I found the meadow by the brookside alive with them. Their shrill 

 double note was heard on every side, and with it the shorter and less shrill 

 whistle (also a double note) of several families of young pied wagtails. But I 

 am being tempted by these fancies, tempted even now to dwell on them at greater 

 length than I have a right to, instead of turning to their quieter cousin, the grey 

 wagtail of the brook. 



3. In dealing with this, the last and most beautiful of our three wagtails, 

 I have no ornithological puzzles to detain me. You may roam over the 

 whole continent of Europe and Asia, and see the same bird that haunts our 

 streams. They do indeed tell us that in the East his tail is shorter ; and 

 some have thought to make a different wagtail of him on that account. But 1 

 think we may put this aside as but an idle tale. I think I have myself noticed 

 that on the Continent the tails of these birds are not so very long as they are with 

 us ; but they are quite long enough to mark the bird, and to be moved continually 

 up and down with that grave and regular persistence which belongs to no other 

 wagtail. 



Every fisherman knows the grey wagtail, and will bear me testimony when 

 I say that grey is not a very good name for him. If he stands fronting you on a 

 water-washed stone, as you fish up stream, he will show you his black gorget of 

 the breeding-season, and the beautiful yellow of all his under-parts ; if you chance 

 to see him from behind, you will have to allow that his back is greyish-brown, 

 but as it nears the tail it becomes greenish-yellow, and the long tail itself is not 

 grey, but nearly black, in colour, with the two outer feathers bright white. It is 

 in fact very like the yellow wagtail ; and its eggs are the same colour ; but the 

 black gorget brings it rather into relation to the pied wagtail, which has the same 

 addition to its dress in spring. Yet from both birds it is quite distinct, in habits as 

 well as appearance, and seems to stand quite by itself in the little world of wagtails. 



