THE YELLOW WAGTAIL. 
109 
form and brilliant plumage, either actively running in 
our path, or sporting in the pastures with that animation 
and ease so remarkable in all this family, that we may 
justly distinguish them as the gentles of our fields. 
With manners and habits similar to the common gray 
ones, yet there seems to be but little intimate associa- 
tion between the species ; and though they are occa- 
sionally intermixed, we most commonly observe them 
feeding by themselves and frolicking with their own 
particular race. In autumn, when their broods are 
united with them, they assemble in large parties towards 
the evening preparatory to their nightly roost, selecting 
low spreading bushes hanging over the pool, or as near 
the water as they can, and thus become secured from 
capture by nocturnal vermin. Being in full beauty at 
this time, the fine yellow breasts of the male birds ren- 
der them very conspicuous as they glance about the dry 
bents of the pasture. Autumn advancing, we lose 
these flights ; but now and then a single bird will ap- 
pear in one of those occasional bright sunny days that 
even winter will produce, looking like some deserted 
straggler who has lost its passage, or from some other 
cause remaining with us, chasing the gnat on the mar- 
gin of the sheltered pool, and then, when the sunny 
ray passes away, he departs with it, is hidden we know 
not where, supported by means we are not acquainted 
with, till another partial gleam allures him from retire- 
ment. In April, the flights once more appear with all 
the fine feather and freshness of autumnal birds, run- 
ning about the furrows in arable fields, and catching 
the insects disturbed by«the plow in its progress. Soon 
building their nest, and attending their families, they 
become bleached by the sun and rain of the season, and 
remain shabby for weeks. Though they may follow 
the course of the swallow ahd other migrating birds, 
yet their peculiar manner of flight seems to preclude 
long-continued exertion ; noLsailing and poising in air 
like the hirundines and others, but proceeding by jerks, 
by risings and sinkings, which at every pause require 
muscular action to set them in progress anew, which for 
any length of time could hardly be continued. It is 
P 
