154 BIRDS OF TUNISIA 



MOTACILLA RAYI (Bonaparte). 

 YELLOW WAGTAIL. 



Budytes rayi, Bonaparte, Comp. List Birds Eur. and N. Amcr. p. 18 

 (1B38); Lochc, Expl. Sci. Alg. Ois. ii, p. 8 (1867); Koenig, J.f. 0. 

 1888, p. 191 ; id. J. f. 0. 1892, p. 389. 



Motacilla campestris, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. BIiis. x, p. 510, pi. 6, 

 tigs, i, ii. 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from Mazagau, Central Marocco. 



Upper parts mostly yellowish-green, brighter on the forehead and lores ; 

 a conspicuous yellow stripe over the eye ; wings and tail blackish-brown, 

 but the longer secondaries are fringed with grey, and the two outer pairs of 

 rectrices are white ; entire uuderparts canary-yellow. 



Iris dark brown ; bill blackish ; feet dark brown. 



Total length 6 inches, wing 3-20, culmen -50, tarsus -85. 



Adult female differs from the male in being duller and browner above, 

 less brightly coloured below, and also somewhat smaller. 



The young are hardly distinguishable from those of M. Jiava. 



There is a specimen in my Tunisian collection, obtained on the 

 plains to the west of Gafsa, which, though it is not a very typically 

 coloured Yellow Wagtail, I can only refer to this species. Loche 

 includes it in his list of the birds of Algeria, and states that he only 

 met with the species on migration and considered it to be merely an 

 accidental straggler in that country. Two male specimens obtained 

 by Loche in Algeria exist in the Milan Museum under the numbers 

 17,64'2 and 17,648. From Marocco I have a few specimens of the 

 Yellow Wagtail, which were obtained at Mazagan on the coast, and 

 the species is probably not uncommon in some parts of that country. 

 Although no doubt more or less a western species, M. rayi occurs 

 occasionally in Italy, Sicily and Malta, and apparently even as far 

 oast as Turkestan. According to some ornithologists there are two 

 forms of this species, one inhabiting Western Europe and migrating 

 in winter to the west coast of Africa, the other inhabiting South 

 Russia, the Caspian region and Turkestan, and wintering in East 

 Africa. The former has been distinguished by the name of Budytes 

 campestris ffavissiinus (Blyth), the latter bearing that of Budytes 

 campestris campestris (Pallas). 



With regard to Pallas's specific name of catnpesfris, although much 



