Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately constituted, that a sudden fright kills them. Thus if, when they are all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WAGTAIL.
This elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family. There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey, and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing below.
This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very pleasing and elegant effect.
We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up tiny insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the quick movement of head and tail.
It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows, robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners, having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound, and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have, evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail, excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes, to find worms for him.
WAGTAIL AND NEST. [[Page 76.]