You know that bird which has just flown down from the point of the rock, and is now running along the beach and picking up with extraordinary rapidity whatever it finds eatable. It is the Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba). The genus has its English name from the quick and almost incessant motion of the tail. The one we are looking at runs with great swiftness, neither hopping nor requiring the assistance of its wings; and it does not sink when passing over the surface of very soft mud, nor does it manifest any unsteadiness when upon smooth and slippery pebbles; and when it is necessary to change from running to flying, it can take wing from either surface with great ease. When in pursuit of insects, it does not, like the swallow, catch them by straightforward speed, but by short and jerking flights. It undergoes considerable change of plumage preparatory to the winter, and those which are in the north leave it as soon as the cold sets in. The Wagtail sings early and sweetly, though its song is not loud. It is a very familiar bird, very lively, and very pretty, so that it is a general favourite, and we believe there are but few persons who do not stop in their walks to watch its quick and cheerful movements. The Bishop of Norwich, among the amusing accounts which he gives of singular places selected by birds for building their nests, mentions a Water Wagtail sitting on her eggs in the noisy workshop of a brass-founder's factory, "within a foot of the wheel of a lathe, in the midst of the din of ham mers and braziers. There, unmolested and unconcerned, she hatched four young ones. The cock, not reconciled to such a scene, instead of taking his part in feeding the nestlings, carried the food he collected to a spot on the roof, where he left it till the hen fetched it when wanted. She became quite familiar with the men who were constantly employed in the shop, and flew in and out without signs of fear; but if a stranger approached, she immediately flew off her nest, or, if absent, would not return till he had departed. We once found a Wagtail's nest under the half-deck of a pleasure-boat, which was anchored in a sheet of water. Several times from the discovery of the nest, to the final departure of the young ones, we embarked and sailed about, the old birds keeping a look out upon our motions, and frequently alighting on the gunwale, and finally rearing and flying off with their brood.” Another little bird, which is very common on a sandy and muddy beach, is the Shore Pipit (Anthus aquaticus): he well merits his name, as he is rarely if ever found at any great distance from the sea. Many of them may be seen, but not in flocks; * Stanley's Birds, vol. ii. p. 31. it is a solitary bird. It finds the principal part of its food at and within high-water mark, but never in the water, except in those shallow pools where it can easily wade. It runs with great ease along the sand, picking up the small shell-fish; and when alarmed, hops on with a bouncing flight. In the early part of the season, when most of the shorebirds have gone inland to nestle, and the sea-birds have fled to their favourite rocks and islands, the Pipit is almost the only winged creature met with on the long and solitary stretches of beach. Oh wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores; so shalt thou see and hear COLERIDGE. The strange-looking thing so firmly fixed to this stone is the Tufted Canoe-Shell (Chiton fascicularis), and, from its resemblance to jointed armour, it is commonly called the "Coat of Mail." Early naturalists, who always indulged largely in the love of the marvellous, imagined the shell to be the covering of a serpent invested with peculiar terrors. The shell consists of eight narrow transverse plates, overlapping each other down the back, and fixed firmly in the thick and fibrous skin of the animal, which forms a ridge round them. These plates are not immoveable, as the animal is enabled, when alarmed, to roll itself up like the Common Wood-louse. The species are numerous, and are to be found on rocks between high and low-water mark, on stones and sub-marine substances, on the stems of the larger sea-weeds, and on the bottom of ships returned from tropical voyages. This has valves, apparently smooth; but, when examined with a glass, they will be found to be rough, like shagreen, except on the elevated ridge of the back the margin is surrounded with tufts of whitish hair; colour brown. : Another species, C. albus, or White Canoe-Shell, is of greater rarity than this, but may not unfrequently be found upon Ulva lactuca and other plants of the same genus. Varieties of the Chiton are now and then met with, which have seven plates instead of eight. The mouth of the animal which inhabits the |