PRESERVED AND MOUNTED 177 



wagtail is a very rare visitor to England. It is 

 very like the former, but has no stripe over the 

 eye. The chin only is white. 



Referring to the gray wagtail, the Rev. W. 

 Fowler says that it is misnamed, and should be 

 called the long-tailed wagtail, by reason of its tail 

 being an inch longer than that of any other 

 species, or the brook wagtail, from its predilec- 

 tion for the neighbourhood of rocky streams and 

 brooks. He very justly adds that no stuffed 

 specimen or picture can convey the slightest im- 

 pression of what a bird is like ' whose most re- 

 markable feature is never still.''" Birds, when well 

 preserved and mounted, are very pleasing orna- 

 ments to a house, and are useful and desirable 

 in a museum for purposes of identification ; but 

 their plumage is very liable to fade even under the 

 most favourable conditions, and this is especially 

 the case with those specimens in which the 

 colouring consists of the more sober, delicate 

 shades of brown and gray. So liable are they 

 to change and fade, that it is at times extremely 

 difficult to identify them, especially if the specimen 

 has not been very carefully preserved from contact 

 with the air, or was not in perfect plumage at the 

 time of its acquirement. The more modern school 



* While looking over the proof-sheets of the present work, 

 a gray wagtail and a nuthatch are disporting themselves on 

 the lawn close to my window. The former is the first which 

 I have observed this season (1895). It is, surely, the most 

 graceful of all our British birds ! 



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