168 Mr. H. Saunders on Birds 



MoTACiLLA FLAVA, Linn. 



On the afternoon of April 26th a flight of thirty or forty 

 Blue-headed Wagtails alighted in a field of rye, then about 

 three inches above the ground, on the Morges-Geneva road. 

 I sat down and kept quiet, when many, in pursuit of insects, 

 fed up to within a yard or two, and on being disturbed by 

 passers-by (who were perhaps surprised to see me sitting like 

 another Whittington on a milestone) they flew up, twitter- 

 ing, into some low fruit-trees, returning very quickly, I did 

 not notice this species on the Jura ridge. 



AnTHUS TRIVIALIS (LiuU.) . 



The Tree-Pipit was identified at Chaumont on July 7th, 

 and in September Mr. Goll shot one out o£ a party whicli 

 were feeding on a mountain pasture in the Orisons; they 

 looked so large and tawny that we hoped for something 

 better. 



Anthus pratensis (Linn.). 



The Meadow-Pipit was seen on newly-manured land near 

 Lausanne in spring, and it undoubtedly nests in the main 

 Jura, though Mr. Nicoud considers it a bird of passage ; 

 but it appears to be less common there than the Water- 

 Pipit, while Chaumont is too thickly wooded to suit it. 



Anthus spipoletta (Linn.). 



The Water- Pipit breeds on the main chain of the Jura, 

 but I did not see it on Chaumont until the end of August. 

 In the Grisons it was very plentiful in September on the 

 sloping irrigated pastures, and I noticed that when it flew 

 up and perched on the roof of a chalet, it always selected 

 one of the large stones employed to keep the shingles doAvu, 

 whereas the Black Kedstart preferred the ridge or the gable. 



Lanius excubitor, Linn. 



The Great Grey Shrike is a resident ; I saw several in the 

 months of February 1890 and 1891 round Lausanne and 

 Vevey. While I was watching one — perched, as usual, on 

 the topmost branch of a bush — it suddenly dropped as if 

 shot, and the next moment the sluulow of a soaring Buzzard • 



