THE GREY WAGTAIL. 1 1 



down the green slope of the weir into the deep pool below. 

 This motion of the water makes the weir and this part of the 

 Cherwell a favourite 'spot of a very beautiful little bird, which 

 haunts it throughout the October term.^ All the spring and 

 early summer the Grey Wagtail was among the noisy becks 

 and burns of the north, bringing up his young under some 

 spray-splashed stone, or the moist arch of a bridge; in July 

 he comes southwards, and from that time till December or 

 January is constantly to be seen along Cherwell and Isis. 

 He is content with sluggish water if he can find none that is 

 rapid ; but the sound of the falling yfater is as surely grateful 

 to his ear as the tiny crustaceans he finds in it are to his 

 palate. For some time last autumn I saw him nearly 

 every day, either on the stonework of the weir, or walking 

 into its gentle water-slope, or running lightly over the islands 

 of dead leaves in other parts of the Cherwell; sometimes 

 one pair would be playing among the barges on the Isis, and 

 another at Clasper's boat-house seemed quite unconcerned 

 at the crowd of men and boats. It is always a pleasure 

 to watch them ; and though all Wagtails have their charm 

 for me, I give this one the first place, for its matchless 

 delicacy of form, and the gentle grace of all its actions. 



The Grey Wagtail is misnamed, both in English and Latin ; 

 as we might infer from the fact that in the one case it is 

 named from the colour of its back, and in the other from 

 that of its belly. It should be surely called the Long-tailed 



' In 1885 Grey Wagtails were much less comnion than in 1884 : in Oxford 

 I only saw one during the autumn. 



