Il8 GREY WAGTAIL. 



in summer across Asia, south of about 6f' N. lat., to Persia, 

 Turkestan, the Himalayas, Northern China and Japan ; wintering 

 in India, Burma, the Indo-Malayan islands, Palestine and Northern 

 Africa. 



The nest is usually near a stream, in some rugged portion of a 

 bank, occasionally among the stems of a shrub ; very frequently in 

 a rough stone wall or some crevice of the rocks. In the Pyrenees, 

 where the Grey Wagtail is very abundant, I observed a nest behind 

 a pair of votive crutches at the entrance to the grotto at Lourdes. 

 The materials employed are moss, soft grass and fine roots, with 

 abundance of hair for a lining. The eggs, usually 5 in number, 

 are greyish-white, mottled with pale clay-colour, and sometimes 

 marked with a. few black hair-streaks at the larger end: average 

 measurements 75 by "55 in. Two broods are occasionally reared in 

 the season ; the first eggs being laid in the latter half of April in 

 England, but earlier in the south of Europe ; and the male takes 

 his share in the task of incubation. The food consists of aquatic 

 and other insects, and small molluscs ; and at the baths of Dax in 

 the Landes, a pair of birds which frequented the courtyard of the 

 hotel used to enter the open windows of the corridors vvith the 

 utmost familiarity, in search of flies. Its call-note is a sharply-uttered 

 zts zi. In its constant and rapid movements this species resembles 

 its allies, but it is decidedly more addicted to perching on trees by 

 the side of streams. 



The adult male in breeding-plumage has the crown and ear- 

 coverts slate-grey, with a narrow white streak above the eye ; below 

 the lore, which is black, a broad white line runs to the neck, which 

 is slate-grey, as are the mantle and rump ; wing-feathers brownish- 

 black, the long secondaries margined with buffish-white ; upper tail- 

 coverts greenish-yellow ; the outside pair of tail-feathers white, the 

 next two pairs also white with a black stripe along part of the outer 

 web, the remainder brownish-black ; chin and throat black ; breast 

 to lower tail-coverts sulphur-yellow; bill dark brown; legs and feet 

 pale brown. Length, from 7 to 7 "5 in., depending upon the length 

 of the tail, which is often shorter than the average in specimens 

 from the Azores, Turkey and Siberia; wing 2)'Z i"- The female has 

 a shorter tail than the male ; her tints are duller and more greenish, 

 and she has less black on the throat. That part becomes white in 

 both sexes in autumn, when a buff tint appears on the breast. The 

 young are browner than the female, and the eye-stripe is buff. 

 This species has bred, in captivity, with the Pied Wagtail, and the 

 hybrids proved fertile. 



