The Pied Wagtail. 19 



a black chin and throat, like our common Pied 

 Wagtail. No picture, and no stuffed specimen, 

 can give the least idea of what the bird is like : 

 the specimens in our Oxford Museum look " very 

 sadly," as the villagers say ; you must see the 

 living bird in perpetual motion, the little feet 

 running swiftly, the long tail ever gently flicker- 

 ing up and down. How can you successfully 

 draw or stuff a bird whose most remarkable 

 feature is never for a moment still ? 



While I am upon Wagtails, let me say a word 

 for our old friend the common Pied Wagtail, who 

 is with us in varying numbers all the year round. 

 It is for several reasons a most interesting bird. 

 We have known it from our childhood ; but 

 foreign bird-lovers coming to England would find 

 it new to them, unless they chanced to come from 

 Western France or Spain. Like one or two 

 other species of which our island is the favourite 

 home, it is much darker than its continental cousin 

 the White Wagtail, when in full adult plumage. 

 Young birds are indeed often quite a light gray, 

 and in Magdalen cloisters and garden, where the 

 young broods love to run and seek food on the 



