GREY-HEADED WAGTAIL. 67 
Vit. MOTACILIIDA. 
78. PIED WAGTAIL.—(Motacilla alba). 
White Wagtail, Black and White Wagtail, Dishwasher, Wash- 
tail, Nanny Washtail—I think we, all of us, know this familiar 
and very graceful bird, and like to see its active run and short 
flight taken for the purpose of capturing an insect. We have 
often been amused, too, at seeing perhaps a whole family of young 
ones running among the legs of the cows near the water, and 
taking a fly now from the belly or flank of the great animal, and 
then from its leg or the ground. The nest is made of grass, bents, 
dead roots, moss, and is sometimes found in a hole in the rude 
wall of an old shed or the side of a haulm wall or pile of furze, 
or ina hole in a bank; sometimes on the outside of a heap of 
sticks, or in thatch, or upon the end of a haystack, and other 
analogous places. Four or five eggs are customarily found in it, 
white, and speckled with cinereous spots and lines, being often 
such as to resemble one variety of the varying eggs of the House- 
Sparrow.—/v7. 19, plate III. 
79. GREY WAGTAIL.—(Motacilla boarula). 
Less plentiful than the Pied Wagtail, equally elegant and 
more beautiful, this little bird resembles the other in its ways 
and habits. Its nest is placed on the ground at no great 
distance from water, which has many attractions for it, as well as 
for the common “ Nanny Washtail.” The materials and general 
structure are, in the main, the same as in the last case; feathers 
and wool being introduced as a lining. There are often five or 
six eggs in it, of a faint white ground-colour, mottled and 
streaked with very light brown, a few streaks being sometimes of 
a darker tint.—ig. 20, plate III. 
80. GREY-HEADED WAGTAIL.—(Motacilla neglecta). 
Met with less than half-a-dozen times in all in Britain. 
FQ 
