N. F. TICEHURST : YELLOW WAGTAILS. 139 



their identification. My own observations and those of 

 Mr, Michael J. Nicoll, carried on chiefly in Sussex, 

 extend only a short distance into Kent, but from what we 

 have seen we consider that the Blue-headed Wagtail is at 

 least as common a bird along the south coast of Kent as it 

 is in Sussex. The bird has been observed several times 

 near the north coast of Kent by Dr. A. G. Butler, and 

 altogether there are a fairly large number of records for 

 this county, so that it is highly probable that it is of as 

 frequent occurrence in Kent as in the neighbouring 

 county. I note, in a recent article in the "Zoologist" 

 (1907, p. 92), that it occurred at least twice last year in 

 Surrey, and it would be well worth the while of county 

 ornithologists to work out in greater detail the distribu- 

 tion of the Blue-headed Wagtail in this country. I should 

 not be surprised to hear that it is an annual visitor in 

 small numbers to the eastern and southern maritime 

 counties, not only on migration, but as a breeding bird. 



Up to a few years ago, the records of the nesting of this 

 species in England were very few. In Stevenson's "Birds 

 of Norfolk," Vol. L, p. 165, a nest, which is supposed to have 

 belonged to this species, is mentioned as having been taken 

 at Herringfleet, in Suffolk, in 1842. In the " Zoologist," 

 pp. 2348 and 2406 will be found the accounts of two nests 

 found in 1869, and another in 1870, near Gateshead-on- 

 Tyne. In his "British Birds' Eggs," Dr. A. G. Butler 

 describes what appears to have been a nest and eggs of 

 this species sent to him from north Kent in 1885. There 

 is also a certain amount of evidence that it has bred at 

 least once of late years in the Broad district of Norfolk. 



Turning now to Sussex, Booth says,'^ that though he 



had never had the fortune to meet with a nest, he was 



well acquainted with certain spots between Brighton and 



Shoreham, where a pair or two of these birds could be 



found at almost any time during May, and that he had 



frequently noticed males in the vicinity of two or three 



* " Borrer's Birds of Sussex," p. 96 ; "A Catalogue of Bii-ds in the Dylie- 

 Road Museum, Brighton," p. 102. 



