MOTACILLA VIDUA. 271 



walls, and is cup-shaped, constructed outwardly of dead leaves, 

 tendrils and dry grass, and lined with fine grass, rootlets and 

 hair. The eggs, from three to five in number, are larger than 

 those of the Cape Wagtail, of a pale brown ground-colour, 

 thickly freckled and spotted all over with dark brown and 

 grey. Tbey measure 0*90 x O60." 



The species is common along the whole course of the 

 Zambesi, where in the neighbourhood of Tete Sir John Kirk 

 informs us that it is called " Droindwi " and is never injured 

 by the natives, who have some superstitious belief connected 

 with it. In the Shire highlands specimens have been collected 

 by Mr. Alexander Whyte, who writes : " This is the common 

 "Wagtail at Fort Johnston on the Upper Shire. It is quite 

 tamo about the station, where it is the only familiar bird; it 

 has a sweet note." Specimens have also been collected by the 

 late Mr. Joseph Thomson at the Rovuma river, by Sir John 

 Kirk in Ugogo, and by Bohm and Fischer throughout German 

 Bast Africa, and to as far north as the Tana river and Barawa 

 on the Somali coast. In Equatorial Africa Mr. Jackson met 

 with the species on Manda Island and inside his camp at 

 Taveita, Mr. Ansorge at Fajao and Masindi in Unyoro, and at 

 Kampala in Uganda, yet I do not find the species recorded 

 from the Upper White Nile between Victoria Nyanza and the 

 Grazal river, nor from Shoa ; but in north-east Africa, accord- 

 ing to von Heuglin, the species occurs on the Lower White 

 Nile and its tributary streams, at Azrag, the Atbara, and at 

 Berber in Nubia. Riippell found it in Abyssinia, and at its 

 most northern range on the Nile, the First Cataract, it has 

 probably been remarked by most tourists, boldly wagging its 

 tail as it rests on the large water-worn granite boulders within 

 a few yards of the passing boat. It was here I first became 

 acquainted with this graceful and confiding species, and being 

 an ornithologist and a lover of birds I shot the first specimen 



