176 MotacillidoB. 



MOTACILLIM) (THE WAGTAILS). 



Graceful and elegant are the epithets best suited to this 

 family, as everybody will confess who has watched their engaging 

 manners, running along the grass-plots, darting by the streams, 

 xind ever flirting their long tails, which alone seem to preserve 

 their equilibrium, as they hurry this side and that, and seem in 

 danger of losing their balance ; and this perpetual fanning 

 motion of the tail, which is never still, and is so characteristic 

 of the members of this family, has been wisely applied to desig- 

 nate them ; the Latin Motacillidce, as well as the English 

 counterpart, signifying * tail-movers/ as indeed they \ are p-:ir 

 excellence. They are of slender form and very active, the lightest 

 and most buoyant of birds ; and as most of them remain with us 

 during the winter, they are doubly valued and doubly welcome. 



65. PIED WAGTAIL (Motacilla Yarrellii). 



No one can be ignorant of this very common bird, with its 

 parti- coloured dress of black and white ; its food consists of 

 insects which it finds in running over the grass or on the margins 

 of streams and lakes, in the shallow waters of which it will wade 

 in search of its tiny prey. Gilbert White also long ago called 

 attention to its habit, which we may constantly verify, of running 

 close up to feeding cows, in order to avail itself of the flies that 

 settle on their legs, and other insects roused by the trampling of 

 their feet. Though some are resident in Great Britain through- 

 out the year, there is no doubt that this is one of the birds 

 which partially migrate from the high, cold, bleak uplands to 

 the sheltered valley or the coast. Moreover, it is certain that 

 large numbers arrive in spring from beyond sea, and recruit our 

 home birds. Indeed, indigenous though it is, this is one of the 

 first spring arrivals which I anxiously look for on the downs, 

 nor is it till the severity of winter is past that I am able to 

 welcome this harbinger of a more genial season to my upland 

 home, for a pair of these pretty birds return every year to rear 

 their young in a rose-tree trained against my house. Thoj-c 



