340 
OBSERVATIONS ON 
seasons ttrough tLe autumn and spring months, when the 
thermometer is at 60"", because then moths, Phalcence, are 
stirring. 
These swallows looked like young ones.^ 
WAGTAILS. 
While the cows are feeding in moist low pastures, broods 
of wagtails, white and gray,""* run round them close up to 
their noses, and under their very bellies, availing themselves 
of the flies that settle on their legs, and probably finding 
worms and larvce that are roused by the trampling of their 
feet. Nature is such an oeconomist, that the most incon- 
gruous animals can avail themselves of each other ! Interest 
makes strange friendships.^ 
WRYNECK. 
These birds appear on the grassplots and walks : they walk 
a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the turf, in 
^ Of their micjration the proofs are such as will scarcely admit of a 
doubt. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright saw vast flocks of them 
at sea. when on their passage from one country to another. Our author, 
Mr. White, saw what he deemed the actual migration of these birds, and 
which he has described in his History of Selborne, [see Letter XXIIL to 
Pennant, p. 78. — Ed.] and of their congregating together on the roofs of 
churches and other buildings, and on trees, previous to their departure, 
many instances occur ; particularly I once observed a large flock of house 
martins on the roof of the church here at Catsfield, which acted exactly 
in the manner here described by Mr. White, sometimes preening their 
feathers and spreading their wings to the sun, and then flying ofi* all 
together, but soon returning to their former situation. The greatest 
part of these birds seemed to be young ones. — Markwick. 
^ This is the bird previously called the yellow wagtail in Letter XIIE. 
I to Pennant. See page 47, note 4. — Ed. 
^ Birds continually avail themselves of particjilar and unusual circum- 
stances to procure their food; thus wagtails keep playing about the 
noses and legs of cattle as they feed, in quest of flies and other insects 
which abound near those animals, and great numbers of them wiU follow 
close to the plough to devour the worms, &c., that are turned up by that 
instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener when digging his bor- 
ders, and will, with great familiarity and tameness, pick out the worms 
almost close to his spade, as I have frequently seen. Starlings and 
ma^rpies very often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their 
ticks. — Markwick. 
