vii HENICURIDAE TIMELIIDAE 5OI 



Wagtails hunting for flies round cattle, and being very connuonly 

 seen wading. Pipits make their nests almost entirely of grass, 

 Anthus correndera and A. rtifulus occasionally adding an over- 

 arching cover ; Wagtails use moss, grass, and roots, with a bedding 

 of hair and feathers. The four to six eggs are bluish white or 

 brownish, with grey, blackish, or brown spots in the Pied Wag- 

 tail and its similarly coloured allies, yellowish-white with yellowish 

 and greenish-brown markings in others of the Sub-family ; in 

 Pipits they are commonly greyish or yellowish-white with brown 

 and grey mottlings, sometimes covering the whole shell ; while in 

 the Tree-Pipit they vary from grey with dark brown spots and 

 streaks to reddish-white, with rich brown, claret-colour, or Ijright 

 red markings or close frecklings. A lilack line or two is a com- 

 mon feature throughout the Family. Wagtails choose for nesting 

 sites ledges of rocks, crevices, holes in trees or walls, tops of 

 pollarded willow^s, stony banks, or in the Yellow Wagtail group 

 hollows in the soil among herbage. Pipits prefer the ground, 

 or even spots shaded by trees, as in the Tree-Pipit. 



Fam. III. Henicuridae. The Fork-tails, a group of doubtful 

 affinity, generally placed near the Motacillidae, extend from the 

 Himalayas and the hills of South and West China to Burma and 

 the Great Sunda Islands, one of the species- some dozen in number 

 reaching Samarcand westwards. They are black and white birds, 

 with stout, straight, and usually elongated bills, long, strong 

 metatarsi without scutellation, moderate rounded wings, extra- 

 ordinarily long forked and graduated tails except in Henicurus 

 scouleri, where the shape is square and the feathers short and 

 well -developed rictal bristles. The outer pair of rectrices are 

 white. JI. ruficapilla has an orange-chestnut crown and hind 

 neck, nearly the whole back being chestnut in the female ; that 

 sex of H. velatus has a brown head ; two species have the upper 

 parts spotted with white, and two the back slate -coloured. 

 Several of them have crests. The bill is black, the feet whitish. 

 These active unsuspicious birds haunt forest - streams or hill- 

 torrents, and hunt for molluscs, insects and their larvae, near or 

 in the water. They often wag the tail when perched on stones 

 or branches. The large nest is formed of fibres, roots, and moss, 

 and is placed on rocks or tree-stumps ; the three or four eggs are 

 greenish-white, with scattered brownish spots. 



Fam. IV. Timeliidae. In this Old World assemblage are in- 



