THE WAGTAILS 339 



THE WAGTAILS 

 [EDMUND SELOUS] 



It has been said that most small birds of bright colouring are 

 deficient in courting actions, and the wagtails have been cited as an 

 exemplification of this principle. My own understanding of the 

 matter is different, and I now bring them forward as evidence against 

 the principle itself. To take the most brightly coloured examples first 

 -the grey-, yellow-, and blueheaded-wagtails, namely in the first the 

 male, after having for some time uttered his little trilling note, from 

 some favourite spot the sprayed, projecting rock above a fall, 

 perhaps, or gnarled willow growing "aslant" the stream launches 

 himself into the air, and with trembling wings, and tail his tail out- 

 fanned, comes, softly fluttering, to the water's edge. 1 How shines the 

 sun, then, upon that other lesser sun, his breast, as, with every feather 

 of it swelled and puffed, it slowly sinks from its meridian ? Is it not a 

 .very globe of gold above the hen who watches its setting, and do not 

 the long white feathers of the tail gleam out from it, like silver rays ? 

 Must not her eyes be well-nigh dazzled, seeing, not, as we do, a mere 

 dot of colour something we could hold in our hand but a gorgeous 

 luminary, larger, by a little, than herself, by whom she measures all 

 things, descending, approaching, coming nearer and nearer, sinking, 

 at last, by her side ? Where is the grey, for her, now, whatever be 

 her husband's name ? Is it not all gold and flashing silver white, with 

 one magnificent spot, in the throat's black velvet, bounding the solar 

 expanse ? Where is the deficiency here, or when the tail leaps 

 upwards, as the bird pitches, and runs resplendent beside her? 

 To a certain nymph, whose name lives not now in my memory, Apollo 

 or Jupiter I am not perfect which appeared once, by request, in 

 full toilette. She was burnt to ashes, and that, I think, is the 



1 Naumann. Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, iii. 



