THE YELLOW WAGTAIL. 169 



form and brilliant plumage, either actively running in 

 our path, or sporting in the pastures with that animation 

 and ease so remarkable in all this family, that we may 

 justly distinguish them as the gentles of our fields. 

 With manners and habits similar to the common gray 

 ones, yet there seems to be but little intimate associa- 

 tion between the species ; and though they are occa- 

 sionally intermixed, we most commonly observe them 

 feeding by themselves and frolicking with their own 

 particular race. In autumn, when their broods are 

 united with them, they assemble in large parties towards 

 the evening preparatory to their nightly roost, selecting 

 low spreading bushes hanging over the pool, or as near 

 the water as they can, and thus become secured from 

 capture by nocturnal vermin. Being in full beauty at 

 this time, the fine yellow breasts of the male birds ren- 

 der them very conspicuous as they glance about the dry 

 bents of the pasture. Autumn advancing, we lose 

 these flights ; but now and then a single bird will ap- 

 pear in one of those occasional bright sunny days that 

 even winter will produce, looking like some deserted 

 straggler who has lost its passage, or from some other 

 cause remaining with us, chasing the gnat on the mar- 

 gin of the sheltered pool, and then, when the sunny 

 ray passes away, he departs with it, is hidden we know 

 not where, supported by means we are not acquainted 

 with, till another partial gleam allures him from retire- 

 ment. In April, the flights once more appear with all 

 the fine feather and freshness of autumnal birds, run- 

 ning about the furrows in arable fields, and catching 

 the insects disturbed by the plow in its progress. Soon 

 building their nest, and attending their families, they 

 become bleached by the sun and rain of the season, and 

 remain shabby for weeks. Though they may follow 

 the course of the swallow and other migrating birds, 

 yet their peculiar manner of flight seems to preclude 

 long-continued exertion ; not sailing and poising in air 

 like the hirundines and others, but proceeding by jerks, 

 by risings and sinkings, which at every pause require 

 muscular action to set them in progress anew, which for 

 any length of time could hardly be continued. It is 

 P 



