1 1 8 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



Oberland, and came suddenly into a little glen, 

 down whicli a stream rushed babbling, at the foot of 

 a wall of rock some fifty feet high. Dancing about 

 stream and rock, like black and yellow fairies, and 

 occasionally resting on the rock's face, or on the 

 young pines which grew about it, was a family, or 

 perhaps two families, of these most graceful birds. 

 So restless were they, so quick and nimble, that the 

 eye could hardly follow them, and it was with the 

 greatest difficulty that I got my glass fixed on one 

 of them. The same agility is shown when they 

 come down in September from the mountains, which 

 are then getting too cool for them, and congregate 

 by the banks of some large river in a valley. I 

 have seen them in great numbers just after their 

 arrival, very busy in catching flies over the water of 

 a rushing glacier- stream, and mixing with their 

 cousins the White Wagtails ; the air was full of 

 dancing birds, and the banks alive with gently- 

 moving tails. As they hung in air over the stream, 

 the tail was often spread out wide, like that of a 

 hovering Kestrel, while the rapidly-moving wings 

 danced them up and down. 



But as a rule, when grown older, the Gray Wag- 

 tails are somewhat quiet and deliberate in their 

 ways, though always full of grace; they are, if I 

 may use the word of both sexes, extremely ladylike 

 birds. And there is a look in them of great content. 



