MOTACILLA MELANOCEPHALA. 291 



In Somaliland Dr. A. Donaldson Smith shot a specimen at 

 Sheik Husein in September, and Mr. Hawker one at Jifa Medir 

 in January. At Berbera Mr. Elliot obtained specimens of 

 M. campestris, M. borealis and M. cinereicapilla, and writes : 

 " A large flock of these birds had come to drink at a rill 

 escaping from a cistern close by, and I fired at them and 

 procured these three species. It was the only time I saw 

 them. The different species were all mingled together, 

 maintaining no distinctive organisation, and I supposed there 

 was but one, until I picked them up." Mr. Lort Phillips 

 records M. borealis as " fairly common, and seen hunting for 

 insects among the feet of the feeding cattle." 



Off the Somali coast in the island of Socotra, Prof. Balfour 

 saw them on the mud-flats extending inland a short distance 

 from the head of Grhor Gharrich. Two of his specimens now in 

 the British Museum belong to the typical subspecies M. flava. 



Antinori records the Yellow Wagtail as found in Shoa from 

 November to May. Mr. Blanford met with both M. flava and 

 M. cinereicapilla in Abyssinia, and von Heuglin remarks that 

 they pass on migration along the shores of the Red Sea and 

 from the Upper White Nile to the Delta, in which latter district 

 he believed they remain to breed. 



Motacilla melanocephala. 



Motacilla melanocephala, Licht. ; Haiti. Abhand. Brem. 1881, p. 99 



Lado ; Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 153 (1896) ; Stark, Faun. S. Afr. i. 



p. 263 (1900). 

 Motacilla feldeggi, Michahj Sharpe, Cat. B. M. x. p. 527, pi. 8, figs. 



1-4 (1885) Transvaal, Abyssinia; Yerbury, Ibis, 1886, p. 17 Aden; 



Barnes, Ibis, 1893, p. 79 Aden ; Jackson, Ibis, 1899, p. 626 



Berkeley Bay ; Grant, Ibis, 1900, Abyssinia. 



Adults. Differ from M. flava only in having the entire upper half of 

 the head jet black, and the immature birds may be recognised by their 

 always having some black feathers on the upper half of the head. 



