2 WILD BIRDS 



touches. Evolution must paint three of the wag- 

 ;more than three, if we look beyond 

 a gold fine as the kingcup's. And, 

 tor .variety,: there must be several wagtail yellows 

 in : bile 'd 'gkmbo'ge, in another a sulphur. There 

 must be blue or grey heads, black and white heads 

 too. These colours and shades were no more worked 

 up on the palette of Nature in a day than were the 

 hills made in a day. It took evolution the aesthete, 

 working with evolution the utilitarian, a long age 

 to turn out this lovely family as we see it to-day. 



Those dancing dandies, yellow wagtails, are all 

 in England by May. Gould said we might take a 

 special pride in them because England was about 

 the only European country they chose to build in. 

 I do not know whether that is so, but I know the 

 bird is one of the loveliest things seen in an English 

 meadow on great May days of green and blue. I 

 suppose there never could be a yellow purer, brighter 

 than this wagtail has on its throat and breast in 

 May. He wears gamboge where the grey wagtail 

 wears king's yellow, paler, I think a little nearer 

 sulphur, like the brimstone butterfly's. 



I have just seen the yellow wagtails balancing 

 and tripping so sweetly on a bit of rough ground by 

 Fleet Pond where the ling has been scorched. They 

 are not quite such water birds as the grey wagtails, 

 or perhaps as the pied ; still the water is sure to 

 draw them where there is a place to their food fancy. 

 And within fifty yards of my yellow wagtails was 

 the little lake where, through the year, one can hear 



