72 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



fledged young which, though elegant bed of dried grass and dead leaves the 

 little fellows, as yet lack the striking five snowy eggs may be felt, left ex- 

 tints of their parents' costume ; in posed as the brooding mother, swishing 

 another you find nestlings just hatched off in your face with startling sudden- 

 hideous objects ; but a third holds ness, almost causes you to lose your 

 a full clutch of hot, creamy-brown footing and fall headlong into the boil- 

 eggs, ing pool on whose brink you insecurely 



Now the grey wagtail is a fairy balance. 



creature to be longed for and loved, If you would woo the kingfisher, 

 for with its graceful manners, trim you must hark back many a mile to 

 figure and exquisitely blended finery where the river is broader and slower, 

 of grey and brightest chrome, it lends and where the banks, in place of being 

 an additional charm to many a spot wet and rocky, rise brown-soiled and 

 which one would fancy needed no such dry. In a few such spots (for the king- 

 enhancement ; and in the dread grip fisher is far from being a really common 

 of winter, when the entrancing birds bird in Central Wales), you may catch 

 have sought warmer quarters down many a passing glimpse of an azure and 

 country, the turbulent hill-streams, topaz streak darting down stream like 

 lovely though they are at all times, some resplendent meteor, or of a more 

 then appear to have lost a very part defined, gorgeously attired shape, fish- 

 of their being. But if the wagtails ing, from its favourite jetty a pendant 

 have departed, the dipper's sprightly willow branch whispering to the stream ; 

 form bobbing from the mossy stones and then there is always the pleasing 

 of the " nant" is ever present ; ice and probability of lighting on the burrow, 

 snow, storm and tempest trouble him at the end of which, on nothing but 

 little. You have passed many an a putrid mass of fish-bones, the sur- 

 ancestral dwelling of theirs to-day, prisingly glossy eggs are laid, 

 but only to find that in every case the Cross the stream by a series of con- 

 first broods have flown, and that none venient stepping stones and dawdle up 

 contain second layings. Just now, the steep slope leading to the moor- 

 however, your luck is in the ascendant ; land. Not long since this slope boasted 

 a nest is discovered a huge, brownish, a fine oak wood, but the greedy axe 

 mossy sphere supported on a ledge has been busy and now only a few dis- 

 of rock, but half dry. In it, on the consolate, half-decayed giants, useless 



