280 MOTACILLA CAPENSIS. 



on the banks of streams or dry ' dongas,' among overhanging 

 roots, or under projecting stones ; they are cup-shaped, neatly 

 and massively constructed of dry grass, lined with fur and 

 cows'-hair. The eggs, three in number usually, are brownish 

 cream colour, very indistinctly freckled with brown, and very 

 slightly glossed : 0'85 inch by 0'55." 



Between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers Mr. T. Ayres found 

 them breeding, and Mr. Distant records them from Pretoria 

 where he remarks they are as common as the sparrow in 

 England, but from their tameness and partiality for the 

 habitations of man they reminded him of our Robin, and like 

 that bird they are as little molested. No winged insect 

 apparently comes amiss as food for these birds ; he saw one 

 kill an Arctiid moth (Binun madagascariensis) and another 

 pursuing a butterfly belonging to the genus Acrsea, which is 

 generally exempt from the attack of birds. He also records 

 seeing a swarm of winged ants (Tennes angustatus) largely 

 destroyed by the Cape Wagtails. 



The late Mr. Frank Oates procured a specimen at Inyati 

 and Mr. T. Ayres records the species from Mashonaland, and 

 from this country Mr. Guy Marshall writes : " Everywhere 

 abundant, occurring near water in flocks varying from 

 three or four up to twenty individuals." He found both this 

 species and M. vidua nesting in tussocks of grass in the middle 

 of the dry bed of the Umfuli, and remarks : " There must have 

 been a considerable destruction of young birds when the river 

 came down with a 4-foot wall of water a week later. Although 

 a resident, it appears to be considerably more numerous 

 during the summer months." 



The species apparently becomes rare to the north of the 

 Zambesi, for it has not yet been recorded from Nyasaland and 

 only from Karagwe in G-erman East Africa, although it ranges 

 to as far north as Naudi near the Equator, at which latter 



