September 



vulgar " pot-shotter " would be futile ; but there 

 should be something in the nobler sort to prompt 

 them to protect our finer breeding birds, or such 

 as from time to time try to regain a footing in 

 a land of which they once were ornaments, but 

 where their very rarity now makes them objects for 

 immediate slaughter at the hand of the man with 

 the gun. 



Yellow wagtails are at this time exceptionally 

 plentiful beside the Mersey. They attend the cows 

 grazing in the fields near the river, for the sake of 

 the insects which they disturb in grazing, and keep 

 so near to the animals' feet and mouths that I have 

 seen the birds continue to walk round a cow's nose 

 as it fed, and pick off the flies when they settled upon 

 it. The cattle fed on stolidly, evidently approving 

 of the action. Toward the end of the month these 

 birds resorted at sunset in companies of a dozen or 

 so to the topmost foliage of high trees on the river 

 bank, small parties frequently flying out, and, after 

 playing about on the wing, returning to the tree- 

 tops. As they remained there until it was too 

 dark to distinguish them, it seemed probable that 

 they would continue in that position through the 

 night, in spite of their known habit of sleeping on 

 the rushes. 



Pied wagtails at this period enter into loose asso- 

 ciation with the yellow species, and both may be seen 

 feeding together in the water meadows. When the 

 term " lugubris " was applied to the former of these 



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