BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 53 



everybody likes. Some of the wagtails stay with us all the year 

 round, but most move southward as winter approaches, and 

 when the weather becomes severe, cross the Channel to seek 

 a warmer climate. In Spring they are one of the plough- 

 man's companions, for often it is only in the freshly-turned 

 furrows that they can then find the insect food they need, 

 but later on they seek the neighbourhood of water where 

 winged things assemble, and there love to paddle m the 

 shallows. Often, too, they take flights inland, searching the 

 meadows and garden-lawns for "such small deer " as they 

 live upon, hawking for flies among the haycocks or amongst 

 the catde that are standing at ease by the pond, or following 

 them in quest of the insects which, as they graze, they disturb 

 from the herbage. I know no bird that is more " bird-like " 

 than the wagtail ; more dainty, delicate, and elegant : in its 

 every movement it is airy, the embodiment of buoyant grace : 

 whether on the ground or a-wing it is fairy-like, volatile, and 

 wayward : running, fluttering, and flitting impulsively as if it 

 were too happy to stop to think, like a child in a meadow 

 full of flowers : a sylph among the birds, so slim and so 

 sweetly-proportioned as to make its little companions look 

 burly and thick-set : so prettily timid in its demeanour that 

 the rest seem almost aggressive ; in a word, a bird of birds. 



But between the familiar and unfamiliar there are just 

 enough birds, well known to all of us, that fit the seasons 

 and the months with a rather special appropriateness. 



