90 THE RING OF NATURE 



ridge and springing, all black-and-white daintiness, 

 into the air to catch the first gnats of spring. 



A true migrant is the yellow wagtail. One 

 fine morning in spring, a whole company of them 

 will descend on a field like a cloud of golden 

 butterflies, and then we know for certain that the 

 flood of northward migration has set in. They 

 stay with us in flocks for some little time, assisting 

 at the potato planting by collecting innumerable 

 grubs behind the plough and making the dull 

 earth lively with a gold that rivals that of the 

 coltsfoot. The French call the bird Bergeronette 

 printaniere Little Shepherdess of the Spring, 

 for it has the pretty habit of running about round 

 sheep or cattle for the sake of the flies that haunt 

 their near presence. 



Our birds are not given halcyon weather for their 

 homecoming. The time at which they must 

 travel in order to make sure of their nesting sites 

 is one of the most windy and uncertain of all the 

 year. Whole armies of swallows are sometimes 

 wiped out in the passes of the Alps by hurricanes 

 of snow and hail which no bird can foresee. The 

 winds, especially violent at this time of year, 

 often sweep the birds far out of their course, tiring 

 them till they drop in the sea, and directing them 

 falsely beyond our islands into the wide Atlantic, 

 which not one short-winged bird in a hundred 

 thousand can cross. Fogs bewilder them, so that 

 they dash themselves to pieces against light- 

 houses and the street lamps of towns, and, among 



