THE WAGTAILS 75 



steal in early spring from the horses' manes ; for this im- 

 pudent little fellow thinks no more of riding the marsh on 

 cattle and sheep than the starling ; indeed they often ride 

 together and are great friends. 



When the nest is made and the four eggs laid (less blue 

 and smaller in size than those of his near relative the white 

 wagtail*), you may see him hawking over the marshes and 

 catching flies round the cattle's feet or getting worms from the 

 dikes ; and when he has gathered his load he flies away in a 

 bee-line for his nest in the pollard, now green with leaves, for 

 it is May ere he builds. And these twain take turns at the 

 dull work of incubation, both sitting pretty close, but never 

 allowing you to catch them with your hand. Year after 

 year they will return to the same spot to rear their young ; 

 year after year you may recognise the sweet ching-i-u about 

 the old mill-wheel until the cold of winter drives most of 

 them across the grey seas to another old mill by an African 

 waterside. 



In winter you may see those that remain feeding in sober 

 plumage along the water, clad in dull winter coats. Indeed, 

 when the meres are ice-bound and the marshes covered with 

 snow, you may find them by many a runlet eating what they 

 can, and pleased with what they get. 



His brother, the white wagtail, is rare rare as the blue- 

 headed bird ; but I have on occasions seen this elegant bird 

 by water near stone walls, and once I found his nest in a 

 pollarded willow overhanging a sleepy dike, where his wife 

 had laid five eggs, bluer and larger in size than those of the 

 pied wagtail. I noticed both birds sat on them; but a 

 greedy urchin found the nest, and seized the eggs, and my 

 studies were cut short. 



* A reviewer in Nature seemed to question my statement in On English 

 Lagoons that the white wagtail and blue-headed wagtail had been seen in 

 Norfolk. Mr. Fielding Harmer, in Wild Life on a Tidal Water, records the 

 white wagtail's appearance in Norfolk, and the specimen of the blue-headed 

 wagtail my wherryman shot was sent to Mr. George Grimsell of Reedham 

 to stuff. 



