BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 



453 



YELLOW WAGTAIL 

 AT N EST. 



WAGTAIL, YELLOW. 



(Mofacilla rail.) 

 Order PASSERES ; Family MOTACILLID^: (WAGTAILS). 



Description of Parent Birds. 

 Length about six and a half 

 inches. Bill moderately long, 

 straight, slender, and black. 

 Irides hazel. Crown, nape, 

 back, and scapulars light olive. 

 Wing - coverts and primaries 

 darkish-brown, the first-named 

 being tipped, and the tertials 

 bordered and tipped with grey- 

 ish-yellow. Upper tail-coverts 

 olive ; tail - quills brownish- 

 black, with the exception of the two outer feathers, 

 which are white, streaked with black on the inner 

 web. Over the eye and ear-coverts is a line of 

 golden-yellow. Chin, throat, breast, belly, and 

 vent a bright golden-yellow. Legs, toes, and claws 

 black. 



The female is much less handsome, her head and 

 back being darker, and the yellow of her breast 

 and under-parts not nearly so bright. 



Situation and Locality. On the ground, in the 

 shelter of a tuft of grass, heather, or coarse herbage ; 

 sometimes behind the long grass of an overhanging 

 bank, well hidden. I know several places in the 

 north of England where pairs breed year after 

 year with unbroken regularity. In grass meadows, 

 pastures, commons, and other suitable places, pretty 

 generally throughout England, except Cornwall and 

 Devonshire. I have met with it more numerously 



