74 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



All through the long days of July and August you may 

 see the yellow wagtail taking long flights, at times crossing 

 the green reed-beds, as they range from marsh to marsh, 

 and in a fine autumn they linger with us through Septem- 

 ber and October, and I have seen a few as late even as 

 November ; but that is extremely rare, and the autumn must 

 be fine indeed an autumn such as delights the herring- 

 fisher's wife. 



More often the first frost falls in October, and they are 

 gone across the salt seas to lands where the sun rises as 

 yellow as their own beautiful breasts, lands teeming with 

 the insect tribe of flies and moths. 



The pied or " black wangtail," as the fenmen call him, is 

 resident, but the majority arrive long before the frosts have 

 left ; indeed I have seen them flying amongst the peewits in 

 February, ere the kingcups have opened their golden cups. 



A trusting bird is the black wagtail, the miller's friend, 

 for he dearly loves to nest in a pollard overhanging a sleepy 

 dike or beneath the prickly eaves of a gorse-thatched shed 

 where the miller fattens his winter calves. Perhaps this 

 shrewd and elegant little harlequin has an eye to the flies 

 and moths that frequent the miller's sheds in the first warm 

 days of spring. 



A sociable little fellow, too, is the pied wagtail, for if he can- 

 not find company by the millside, he will away to the marshes 

 where the fenmen are cleaning the dikes or mowing the 

 sere marsh crops, where he alights, throwing his tail up into 

 the air, bowing coquettishly. After this ceremony, you may 

 see him intent upon his prey and forgetful of the labourer's 

 presence, merely crying ching-i-u, ching-i-u, if disturbed by 

 meak or crome that drags forth the lamb's-tail. 



Very fond too is he of alighting on a marsh gate or 

 decaying post, w r hence his regards extend over the marsh- 

 lands, brown from the winter's frosts, away to the mill-shed 

 or pollard where he and his sober wife intend building their 

 large nest of grass and horsehair, that you may see him 



