PERCHING BIRDS. 93 



most elegant of them all, its movements being very 

 light and graceful. Though haunting the margin of 

 the streams, it does not appear to enter the water so 

 freely as the others, but seeks its food on the grass, on 

 which it is well fitted for running by its much longer 

 hind claws. At the same time I have remarked its 

 fondness for frequenting the beds of the water daisy, 

 which in summer nearly fills the stream with its waving 

 masses, and where the birds appear to find a rich feast 

 of aquatic insects. The pied wagtail is also constantly 

 to be seen on these fish- beds, as they are called. 



I have once met with the yellow wagtail in the winter 

 viz., on February 8, 1848. It was a solitary bird in 

 a meadow near my own garden, where it was feeding by 

 the side of a small carrier which takes the overflow from 

 the stream above. 



Amongst our common summer birds is the Tree Pipit 

 (Anthus arboreus, Bech.). It is a favourite bird of 

 mine, and in my solitary wanderings in the woods, its 

 brief and singular flight and sweet song have often 

 afforded me much pleasure ; its habits are rather shy, 

 and I never saw more than a pair together. I have 

 found it most frequent in the wooded parts of the forest, 

 not amongst the plantations, but where the giant oaks are 

 interspersed with the graceful birch. Its favourite perch 

 is a withered lirnb of one of the old veterans, springing 

 from which it soars upwards in the manner of the sky- 

 lark for about twenty or thirty yards, describing a half 

 spiral in its flight, when it descends diagonally on out- 

 stretched wings and tail to the branch which it left. It 

 is during its downward flight that its song is uttered, 

 and sometimes, though but rarely, from its perch. With 

 us it is seldom, if ever, met with in the cultivated parts, 



