554 MOTACILLID.E. 



the bank, the inequalities of which afford concealment ; hut 

 other sites are sometimes chosen, for Mr. Weir mentions one 

 built on a shelf in a room, which the bird entered through 

 a broken window, and Mr, Cecil Smith has found one in a 

 rough stone wall — both nests being some way from water. 

 The structure is similiar to that of the Pied Wagtail, being 

 formed of fibrous roots, dry grass and moss, lined with wool, 

 hair or feathers. The eggs are from five to six in number, 

 french-white, closely mottled, sufi"used or clouded with very 

 pale brown or olive, varying in depth of tint, and also in the 

 extent of ground shewn between the markings : they measure 

 from -79 to "72 by from '57 to '53 in. Selby observed that 

 two broods are produced in the season, the first of which is 

 generally fledged by the end of May, and the second, according 

 to Macgillivray, is abroad in July. The young, till late in 

 autumn, may be frequently seen in company with their 

 parents. 



A line drawn across England from the Start Point, slightly 

 curving to round the Derbyshire hills, and ending at the 

 mouth of the Tees, will, it is believed, mark off the habitual 

 breeding-range of this species in the United Kingdom : for 

 southward and eastward of such a line it never or only 

 occasionally breeds, while to the westward and northward its 

 nest may be looked for in any place suited to its predilections, 

 as above described, whether in this island or in Ireland, 

 where, according to Thompson, it is extensively though not 

 universally distributed. In Scotland, says Macgillivray, it is 

 rare to the north of Inverness, but it is an occasional 

 summer- visitor to Orkney, and in Shetland it occurs towards 

 the end of summer, though it is not known to have been 

 met with in the Outer Hebrides. In the south-west of 

 England its numbers are in summer comparatively small, 

 but it breeds annually in Cornwall and on Dartmoor, and as 

 we pass northward its numbers increase, until in parts of 

 Scotland perhaps they attain their maximum. Nests have 

 been reported from Dorset, Wilts, Hampshire, Sussex and 

 even Kent, but in those counties they are confessedly casual 

 and only in the case at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, men- 



