92 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



MOTACILLIDiE. 



PIED AVAGTAII.. 



Motacilla luguhris. 



Enormous numbers of this species make their appearance 

 on the coast thronghout the whole o£ March, and smaller 

 parties continue to arrive till the middle of April. In March 

 I have seen the beach, between Brighton and Shoreham, 

 covered with them in the early mornings, though a few 

 hours after, very few, or none, will be met with, as they pro- 

 ceed at once to their inland quarters, where they become 

 common throughout the county, and form one of the most 

 sprightly and elegant ornaments of our lawns, gardens, and 

 fields, where the new arrivals are readily distinguished from 

 those which have remained with us during the winter, by the 

 purity and brightness of their plumage. This Wagtail, soon 

 after dispersing through the county, begins to build its nest, 

 choosing some place in the neighbourhood of buildings^ such 

 as the thatch of a haystack, a hole in an ornamental stump 

 in a garden, or in a wall or bank, or perhaps j)lacing it on 

 the larger ends of sticks in a fagot-stack, and constructs it 

 of moss and fine roots, lining it with hair. 



After it has reared its young, it betakes itself with them 

 to the meadows, especially delighting in those which have 

 been recently flooded, where no douljt it finds abundance of 

 its insect food and small freshwater moUusks. In such 

 places, I think I may say that I have seen them in hundreds, 

 and at this period the young have the part of the forehead 

 and cheeks which, in mature specimens, is white, of a deli- 

 cate lemon-yellow. All the Wagtails either walk or run, and 

 do not hop. 



