water-wagtail

His thin, commanding nose dominated a mask of brown skin and bone, his narrow brown eyes glowed slightly, his dark hair was smooth and brushed back; he was five feet seven inches in height, and long seasons, during which he had been afraid to eat, had laid a look of austerity over such natural liveliness, as may be observed in-say — a water-wagtail.

Swan Song 2004

The birds were swift-winged hawks and owls, pigeons and ring-doves; crows again became common, and the water-wagtail was tame as the Brazilian thrush, João de Barros: it hopped about within a few feet of us, quite ignoring the presence of Frenchmen armed with murderous guns.

The Land of Midian 2003

The yellowish _Bunting-like_ water-wagtail, is very common just now: it occurs in wheat fields; flight, chirp, and mode of getting up when disturbed just as in the Buntings.

Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith

Now this was all very well, thought Barrett, but what he had come for was the ovular deposit of the water-wagtail.

The Pothunters 1928

He wavered, but a recollection that there was water in the Badgwick direction, and that he might with luck beard a water-wagtail in its lair, decided him.

The Pothunters 1928

Is it known that the pretty pied water-wagtail is called la lavandière from its love of water and its manner of beating up and down its tail as our washerwomen wield their wooden beaters?

A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago 1919

After about an hour of red haziness the sun pierced the bank of mist and shone out gloriously, almost as in summer; the birds, ready to snatch a moment's joy, were flitting about tweeting and calling, a water-wagtail took a bath in a shallow pool of a stream, and a great flock of bramblings, rare visitors in those parts, paused in their migration to hold a chattering conference round an old elder tree.

A Popular Schoolgirl Angela Brazil 1907

From Bungay in Suffolk comes the news that a water-wagtail has built its nest in a milk-can.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-25 Various 1898

Gibbs came to me a few days later -- you realise how gossip spreads in these places -- and said that he was hurt in his mind to think that Miss Maud should call him a water-wagtail.

Watersprings Arthur Christopher Benson 1893

'Do you think Catherine pretty?' said Rose, with an excellent pretence of innocence, detaching a little pebble and flinging it harmlessly at a water-wagtail balancing on a stone below.

Robert Elsmere Humphry Ward 1885