A BUNDLE OF FLIES 215 



his bill, to which he keeps adding, and as he 

 sometimes, also, drops a portion of it, and again 

 picks it up, it must be composed of a number of 

 different entities. This living bundle he deposits, 

 after a time, on the lawn, and then eats it piecemeal, 

 after which he runs over the grass, making little 

 darts, and eating at once, on secural. Shortly after- 

 wards, however, I see him, again, with such another 

 fardel, and with this he keeps walking about, or 

 standing still, for quite a long time, without swallow- 

 ing it — indeed, he has now stood still for so long 

 that I am tired of watching him. This is interesting, 

 I think, for as I have never seen birds collect insects, 

 like this, except when young were in the nest, I 

 have no doubt this wagtail's idea is to feed his. 

 But, first, his own appetite prevents him from doing 

 so, and, then, it is as though there were a conflict 

 between the two impulses, producing a sort of 

 paralysis, by which nothing is done. I make sure 

 that this is the male bird ; but now appears the 

 other — the female, '* for a ducat '* — carrying what I 

 can make out, with the glasses, to be a bundle of 

 flies, to which she keeps adding, and, shortly, she re- 

 pairs, with them, to the nest. The male now comes 

 again, and runs about, collecting a similar packet ; 

 and I can notice how, sometimes, he is embarrassed to 

 pick up one fly more, without losing any he has, and 

 how he secures it, sometimes, sideways in the beak, 

 when he would, otherwise, have made a straight- 

 forward peck at it. Not only this, but, with his beak 

 full of booty, he will — I have just seen him — pursue 

 insects in the air. Whether he secures them, under 

 these circumstances, I cannot, with assurance, say, but 



