1 92 1.] the Near East and Tropical East Africa. 667 



At first sight, many of the specimens I coHoctod in eastern 

 Africa looked very like the western rayi, for they had 

 greenish heads. But campestris has a yellowish-green 

 back and more yellow on the head and sides of the neck 

 than rayi, the latter having a slight brown tinge on the 

 back, which is never the pnrer yellow-green colour of 

 campestris. Quite 30 per cent, of my eastern African 

 campestris had green heads. 



Motacilla f. pygmaBa Brelnn. 



A partial resident in the Egyptian Delta and the Fayoum, 

 large numbers disappearing in mid-winter. I am not, how- 

 ever, aware of its occurrence outside Egypt, Butler's bird 

 (Ibis, 1909, p. 392) being apparently wrongly identified (see 

 also Sclater & Praed, Ibis, 1918, p. 613). 



Motacilla f. leucocephala (Przew.). 



Yellow Wagtails with white heads have been obtained in 

 Egypt and eastern Africa, and are supposed to be aber- 

 rations. Is Przewalski's leucocephala also an aberration ? 



It was first described in 1887 from birds obtained in the 

 southern Altai ; it was again reported by Zarudny at Merv 

 and on the Oxus in Turkestan. Whistler shot a male at 

 Jhelum in India on 2. v., Zarudny again collected three in the 

 Orenburg District (Grote, J. f. 0. 1919, p. 372), and Suschkin 

 states they breed regularly [sic) in the Tschalkar District of 

 the Khirgiz Steppes and occasionally in the Steppe Province. 



Finally, Suschkin (Messag. Ornith. 19J5) found a breeding 

 colony at Acliit Nor in north-western Mongolia, where he 

 describes them as common in the swampy meadows, having 

 obtained IS birds and eggs. It would therefore appear that 

 this race is not an aberration, and that its breodino- ranoe is 

 a narrow strip of country running just south of the range of 

 beema, from north-western Mongolia to the Khirgiz Steppes, 

 but it is everywhere rare and local. 



Motacilla f. feldegg Michahelles. 



Uncommon on autumn passage during September in 

 Palestine and not uncommon in Egypt, where some years it 



