CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 1 35 



CASE 27. 



THE GREY WAGTAIL. 



Order, Passeres. Family, MotacillidcE. 



Although this species breeds regularly in the 

 southern counties, it is not very common, and 

 chiefly frequents the neighbourhood of streams in 

 mountainous and hilly ground. It is, 1 think, when 

 in full plumage, the most beautiful of all our Wag- 

 tails, and having a much longer tail than the others, 

 presents, when running up and down boulders of 

 rocky mountain streams with its dainty litde feet, 

 in pursuit of every sort of insect life, a very elegant 

 and graceful appearance. 



A very marked characteristic of the Grey Wag- 

 tail is that, unlike its congeners, it makes a habit of 

 perching on trees. 



The first I ever shot was when staying with a 

 friend at a Shooting Lodg^e on Loch Scammadale, 

 about 15 miles out of Oban. Just outside this 

 Lodge was a small burn, and one morning, seeing 

 a Grey Wagtail, I annexed it with my little 

 "Collectors'" gun. It is the one you see on the shingle 

 in the Swallow case, and is in quite a different 

 plumage to the others in another case ; probably 

 this is owing to its being an older bird. 



The nesting-site is, more often than not, in the 

 bank of some rocky mountain stream, of which there 

 are plenty in North Wales. It was in such a locality 

 as this, with the aid of a local man, that I obtained 



