Birds. 350 



again which has once had a fair taste of the pseudo-food offered him : at least, not at 

 the same time and with the same ily. Moreover, in a trout-stream which is much 

 fished, the trout, after a while, refuse to rise at even the most tempting artificial fly 

 which can be shown them : they have learned its delusive nature. Again, the birds 

 which pecked at the Greek painter's grapes, did not prosecute the attempt to gratify 

 their appetite beyond the first or second trial ; if they had, we should never have heard 

 the anecdote mentioned in proof of the excellence of the painting. Now if these birds 

 learned by experience that a bit of painted — canvas I was going to say, but the an- 

 cients did not use canvas, I think — panel was not good for food, and desisted from 

 their attempts to eat it ; — if the trout quickly learns that an object which looks vastly 

 like a drowning fly, is nevertheless not one, nor yet anything else fit to eat (and other 

 analogous cases might be adduced); — it is, as I have said, surely questionable whe- 

 ther the wagtail, described as flying repeatedly against a window, did so in pursuit of 

 an imaginary insect (Zool. 137), and that in spite of repeated discomfiture. Nor does 

 the other hypothesis, namely, that the bird saw his own image, which " he took for a 

 lost mate " (Id. 232), appear to carry more of probability with it. In early spring the 

 wagtails* are seen in small flocks of ten or twelve, or sometimes more. In the course 

 of a week or two they pair. In the summer they may be seen in family groups ; but 

 as the autumn wears on, the tie which once connected them seems to have been dis- 

 severed, and you see them more frequently alone than in company : nor do any facts 

 relative to their natural history give room for supposing that the matrimonial compact 

 remains in force after the last brood of nestlings has been sent to shift for themselves. 

 Besides, supposing for the sake of argument, that the bird whose conduct is under con- 

 sideration had lost his mate, and that at first he was deceived by the reflected image 

 of his own form so far as to think it was his mate ; yet, having detected the illusion 

 by flying against the glass, he would scarcely have persevered in his futile efforts 

 for days and weeks ! It is observable, too, that in the earlier communication, the 

 wagtail is spoken of as commencing its attentions to the window so early as the begin- 

 ning of April. After continuing them six weeks, it absented itself for " a couple of 

 months or more ;'' and was again seen " at its old station early in September,'' (Zool. 

 136). It is to be presumed that the eight or nine weeks of its absence were spent in 

 nidification &c. : it must, therefore, have met with a mate somewhere. But if we ac- 

 cept the second hypothesis, this mate must have been the second that year; since by 

 the beginning of April it was already looking out for one it had lost. Six weeks also 

 were spent in the search. Other birds, we know from numerous facts, experience no 

 difficulty in obtaining a new mate, should they have the misfortune to lose their old 

 one. To mention but one instance, which occurred within my own experience. A 

 pair of starlings had occupied part of a water-trough or eaves-drain to nest in. This 

 might have occasioned inconvenience, and consequently one was shot : the survivor, 

 within a few hours, formed a union with another. One of the second pair was shot, 

 and with the like result. And if my memory does not fail me, no less than five new 

 mates had been found by the surviving bird in the space of eight or nine days. How 

 is it, then, that the grey wagtail alone should, on losing his mate, be compelled to live 



* By the river Wye, in Herefordshire, I used to see the yellow wagtail in such 

 flocks in March ; here, by the Whitadder and Tweed, I see the grey wagtail, and my 

 remarks apply to both. 



