THE GREY WAGTAIL. 113 



Upon this point Professor Newton has re- 

 marked that " a line drawn across England 

 from the Start Point, slightly curving round the 

 Derbyshire hills, and ending at the mouth of 

 the Tees, will, it is believed, mark off the 

 habitual breeding-range of this species in the 

 United Kingdom ; for southward and eastward 

 of such a line it never, or only occasionally 

 breeds, while to the westward and northward its 

 nest may be looked for in any place suited to 

 its predilections, as above described, whether 

 in this island or in Ireland, where, according to 

 Thompson, it is extensively, though not univer- 

 sally distributed. In Scotland, says Macgilli- 

 vray, it is rare to the north of Inverness, but it 

 is an occasional summer visitor to Orkney, and 

 in Shetland it occurs towards the end of summer, 

 though it is not known to have been met with 

 in the Outer Hebrides. In the south-west of 

 England its numbers are in summer compara- 

 tively small, but it breeds annually in Cornwall 

 and on Dartmoor; and as we pass northward 



its numbers increase, until in parts of Scotland, 



i 



