62 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 

 Family MOTACILLIDvE. Genus Motacilla. 



PIED WAGTAIL. 



Motacilla alba varrellii, Gould. 

 Double Brooded. Laying season, March to June. 



British breeding area : The Pied Wagtail is 

 widely and very generally distributed over the British 

 Islands during the breeding season, extending in small 

 numbers to some of the Hebrides and to the Orkneys, 

 but not to St. Kilda, where I learned that it only occurred 

 on passage. 



Breeding habits : The principal breeding-haunts of 

 the Pied Wagtail are cultivated districts, those where 

 water of some description is present being preferred. 

 Brick-fields and the vicinity of clay-pits, where pools of 

 water are numerous, are favourite localities, whilst the 

 neighbourhood of country cottages and farm-houses, 

 often far from open water, is equally preferred. It is 

 very probable that some individuals of this species may 

 pair for life. I stated the contrary in Rural Bird Life 

 twelve years ago ; but since then I have on various occa- 

 sions known pairs of these Wagtails breed year after year 

 in one particular hole of a wall or building. The nest 

 is made in a great variety of situations, but generally in 

 places well protected from view. Very frequently it is 

 made in a hole in the wall of a cottage or outbuilding, 

 or in a wall by the roadside, or by the side of a stream. 

 Almost as frequently it ma\' be found under a clod of 

 earth or clay, or beneath a tile in the brick-fields ; some- 

 times in a crevice of the stacks of unbaked bricks. Near 

 clay-pits it is often placed far under a heap of clay 

 blocks ; whilst crevices in rocks or roots, or under steep 

 bare river-banks, are utilized. A site is not unfrcqucntly 



