256 WAGTAILS AND PIPITS 



They arrive about dusk from all directions " ; and the editor, in some- 

 what evasive reply to the question, " Is this usual ? " says : " The same 

 thing has been observed of both the grey- and yellow- wagtails." These 

 habits are continued into the early spring indeed until the approach 

 of the nesting season though I believe that, as with rooks, there is 

 a tendency for such large gatherings to break up into smaller ones. 

 Thus, " at the quiet evenfall " of an April day, one may be sitting 

 alone on the margin of some still pool or mere, watching sedge-, reed-, 

 or willow-warblers fly-catching darting from reed-clump to osier-bush, 

 flying softly up into the air, and softly down again, clinging sideways 

 to the slender stems of the reeds, setting their feathery heads waving, 

 and swinging with them, light as they, showing every charm and 

 grace and prettiness, all exercised in destruction. Into this soft, fair 

 deception this fairy slaughter-bower enter, briskly, a pair of pied- 

 wagtails, who, recognising at once that it is " good," begin to act in 

 exactly the same way as their before-arrivers on the scene, perching 

 amidst the twigs, clinging and swinging upon the reeds in fact just 

 the same, and with almost, if not quite, the same grace. This is 

 interesting, for they are not ordinary at least not ordinarily seen 

 wagtail habits, but how much more so when the number begins 

 gradually to increase, till at last there are perhaps a score of these 

 little birds darting all about amidst the reeds and the bushes, or over 

 the water of the dark, silent pool, just touched by the hastening 

 sunlight. The constant flashing of their white tail feathers has a 

 pretty and bizarre effect, like something of "faerie" rather than of 

 "this sin-worn mould," and, amidst it, there is sometimes another 

 flash, brighter, more gorgeous lit now in the sun's last rays the 

 jewelled flash of a kingfisher. Visiting the same pool, a night or two 

 afterwards, no bird is to be seen, the warblers having apparently 

 finished their meal, but, a little later, just as the true evening falls, 

 the wagtails are there again. Softly they flit in, coming as to an 

 accustomed spot, and, at once, as before, commence pursuing their 

 quarry. The reeds and the osiers are beaten, as one may say, but 



