Something in the style of the birds recalls the wagtail, though they are so much larger.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Open Air] Reference

A wagtail bobbing in the shallows fled into the waste.    From Wordnik.com.  [Uncanny Tales] Reference

Some birds live on the sea-shore, as the wagtail; the bird is of.    From Wordnik.com.  [The History of Animals] Reference

A grey wagtail has fallen head over heals in love with my car mirror.    From Wordnik.com.  [Confusion in Montgomeryshire] Reference

And then in the morning, flirting up and down like a wagtail in front of the house.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mrs. Dalloway] Reference

She showed him nests of robins, and chaffinches, and linnets, and buntings; of a wagtail beside the water.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Prussian Officer and Other Stories] Reference

Something about its appearance puzzled me: too long-tailed for meadow pipit, but not elegant enough for a wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birdwatch: Water pipit] Reference

But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped vivaciously from one gesture to another, had just picked up a stone.    From Wordnik.com.  [Les Miserables] Reference

Surely it is impossible to improve upon a wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

Mak your wife a gowdspink, and she'll turn a water-wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Proverbs of Scotland] Reference

The forktail, however, has many of the habits of the true wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

As was stated above, this species is often called the hill-wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

"Here; running away with your fish by the dozen," said the wagtail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Featherland How the Birds lived at Greenlawn] Reference

I was on the point of calling it a glorified wagtail, but I refrain.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

"An 'you as waik as wather, with legs like the pins of a wather-wagtail!".    From Wordnik.com.  [Lost in the Forest Wandering Will's Adventures in South America] Reference

"May I go with you?" asked the Water wagtail, coaxingly stroking Paula's arm.    From Wordnik.com.  [Complete Project Gutenberg Georg Ebers Works] Reference

They have the wagtail trick of wagging the tail, but they perform the action in.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

These display the elegant form of the wagtail and the sober colouring of the lark.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

And in the autumn to see them return, grey goose, starling, wagtail, and all the rest.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Great Hunger] Reference

This forktail is a trifle larger than a wagtail, and its tail is over 6 inches in length.    From Wordnik.com.  [Birds of the Indian Hills] Reference

"The water-wagtail," though he wished her every happiness, did not satisfy him for Orion.    From Wordnik.com.  [Complete Project Gutenberg Georg Ebers Works] Reference

From Bungay in Suffolk comes the news that a water-wagtail has built its nest in a milk-can.    From Wordnik.com.  [Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-25] Reference

Specklebreasted thrushes were at work, and a wagtail that ran as with Clara's own rapid little steps.    From Wordnik.com.  [Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith] Reference

While he used the homeliest names, a dish-washer for a wagtail, cuckoo's bread-and-cheese for wood-sorrel.    From Wordnik.com.  [Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster] Reference

She curtsied to me, like a bird, flirting the train of her gown like a wagtail on a stone by the running stream.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Dew of Their Youth] Reference

In her excitement, Rosa pinched Staines, and with her nose, that went like a water-wagtail, pointed out the malefactor.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Simpleton] Reference

What stuck in that last arable, dead stiff as the Rosinantes in Trafalgar Square, all but one limb, which goes like a water-wagtail's?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Love Me Little, Love Me Long] Reference

James, needless to say, flittered and hurried hither and thither around the audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of a pool.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Lost Girl] Reference