76 THE BIRDS OF OXFOEDSHIRE. 



THE WHITE WAGTAIL. 



Motacilla alba. 

 The White Wagtail, which on the continent takes the 

 place of our Pied Wagtail, is a scarce summer visitor to 

 England, and has been detected in Oxfordshire on three 

 occasions. On the 17th May, 1884/ I watched through a 

 strong field glass a White Wagtail, apparently a male, in a 

 grass field at Great Bourton, and on the 27th September in 

 the following year clearly identified two examples among a 

 party of some nineteen black and white Wagtails, in various 

 stages of plumage, in a field at Clattercote Reservoir. Mr. 

 A. H. Macpherson saw a White Wagtail on the river bank 

 above Oxford on the 4th May, 1886. In breeding plumage 

 the adult White and Pied Wagtails may be distinguished by 

 the colour of the back, which is of a clear pearl grey in the 

 former, and either black (male) or sooty grey mottled with 

 black (female) in the latter. 



THE GREY WAGTAIL. -^ ' 



Motacilla sulphurea. 

 The Grey Wagtail is for the most part a winter visitor, 

 instances of its breeding in this county, or being seen in 

 summer, being rare. It arrives in autumn at the end of 

 September or the beginning of October, remaining during the 

 winter, and is usually observed singly or in pairs, but occasion- 

 ally several may be seen together. The generally sluggish 

 nature of our streams makes the Grey Wagtail a more local 

 species with us than it would otherwise be, for its love of 

 rushing water takes it to weirs, lashers, and the neighbourhood 

 of water-mills, and thus certain spots are found to be invaria- 

 bly tenanted by them, and if there is a Grey Wagtail in the 

 district you may be pretty sure to know where to find it. 

 The author of A Year with the Birds gives as a frontispiece to 

 his volume a drawing of the Weir on the Cherwell at Oxford, 



