ioo A SPRING HERESY 



more and more excited as I approach, till at last she 

 launches herself upon what must have the appearance 

 of infinite space. Arrived on the farther side of the 

 river, she continues for minutes afterwards to send 

 back her loudly chattered protest. The Magpie is 

 much given to this subdued soliloquizing, subdued, 

 that is, as compared with its loud, chattering cry, and 

 one must be fortunately placed to hear it well. 



As I follow the river bank, the note of a solitary 

 Pied Wagtail indicates its presence beside the water, 

 from which in all probability it has been unable to 

 break away during the week of fog and frost. Half- 

 a-dozen of these birds remain on this stretch of the 

 river every winter. Seeing that in early spring and 

 late summer Pied Wagtails frequent the Mersey 

 and the adjoining water meadows in this neighbour- 

 hood to the number of from one to two hundred at 

 a time, and that some half-dozen only remain to 

 winter with us, it seems remarkable that any at all 

 should continue when so great a majority depart. 



The same may be said of the Meadow Pipit, of 

 which great numbers continue with us for a time in 

 spring and autumn, but only a few are to be seen 

 during winter. The high-pitched "Wheel! wheel!" 

 of a couple of these birds, repeated several times as 

 they flew out over the foggy river and back to the 

 bank further on, was so resonant in the dense 

 atmosphere, that one might easily have mistaken it 

 for the note of the Common Sandpiper or Summer 

 Snipe, were this bird a sojourner with us during the 

 dead season. Indeed, the resemblance between these 

 two birds is all the more striking for the lack of any 

 outward correspondence between them. The one a 



