AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 157 



66. GREY WAGTAIL 



Motacilla sulphurea. 



This extremely pretty bird is by no means abundant 

 with us, but may, nevertheless, be met with in pairs 

 in the winter in certain spots year after year. We 

 generally find it frequenting shallow gravelly bends 

 of the river or brooks, over which the water runs 

 swiftly, and which consequently remain longer un- 

 frozen than the more tranquil reaches of our streams. 

 A pair often select the neighbourhood of our boat- 

 house at Lilford in severe weather, and make frequent 

 visits to the old stonework of the house. I think 

 1 may say that tliese birds rarely perch upon a tree 

 or bush. The favourite haunts of this AYastail in 

 our Islands are the wilder portions of our western 

 and northern counties, where it may be met with, 

 in the company of the Dipper, frequenting rapid 

 rocky streams, about which it is constantly flitting 

 from stone to stone, or running over the pebbly banks 

 in pursuit of its insect-food : on such streams an old 

 watermill is almost a certain find for a pair of these 

 birds in the nesting-season, and in holes in the walls 

 of such buildings or their appurtenances I have found 

 their nests in Devonshire, North and South AVales, 

 Derbyshire, various parts of Ireland and Scotland, 

 Spain and Switzerland. In the eastern and midland 

 counties of England this Wagtail is seldom seen in 

 the summer months, and is not, so far as I know, 

 numerous in winter — in fact, I do not recollect ever 

 to have seen more than half a dozen of these birds 

 together in any part of England. The note of the 

 Grey Wagtail is of the same character as that of 

 the species last described, but sharper and clearer in 



