THE WAGTAILS 259 



of mortality, sprinkle our woods and fields ? One might 

 almost fancy that, like the elephants of Sindbad the Sailor to 

 whose authority may be added that of the modern Indian shikari l 

 there was some valley, strangely hidden from the view of man, to 

 which, when near their end, they retired. However this may be, 

 it is not easy to see a bird's natural death, though I once caught a 

 wood-pigeon that expired in my hands, and once a pied-wagtail was 

 seen to fall lifeless, in the very act of catching a fly. 2 But how rare 

 are such instances (which, moreover, do not quite answer the question), 

 and how great is that disproportion between the numbers of the living 

 species and its mortal remains, to which attention has often, ere now, 

 been drawn, in the case of various animals ! With which wonder-note 

 (for to me it is really one) I will end this little wagtail fairy-tale. 

 For, after all, ornithology is a science, and that science is a fairy-tale 

 we know, not only from Tennyson, but, still more, upon the reiterated 

 personal assurance of quite a number of scientific writers, well able 

 to make it one except, perhaps, in the nursery. 



1 Sanderson, Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Beasts of India. 



8 Field, 20th December 1884. Dissection showed that the cause was an " effusion of blood 

 on the brain, resulting, apparently, from rupture of a small blood-vessel at base of skull, 

 consequent on sudden and severe exertion." 



