114 OUR SUMMER MIGRANTS. 



perhaps, they attain their maximum. Nests 

 have been reported from Dorset, Wilts, Hamp- 

 shire, Sussex, and even Kent ; but in those 

 counties they are confessedly casual, and only in 

 the case at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, men- 

 tioned by Mr. Gould (" Contr. Orn." 1849, 

 p. 137), does the species seem to have been 

 more than an accidental settler." 



The Grey Wagtail may be at once distin- 

 guished by having the vent and upper tail coverts 

 of a sulphur-yellow, and by its great length of 

 tail. In summer it has a black patch upon the 

 throat, of a triangular shape when viewed in 

 profile, and bordered with white, but in winter 

 this black patch disappears, and the throat is 

 then of a pale yellowish-white. 



It has been stated by Temminck and 

 other naturalists who have followed him, that 

 the black throat is the peculiar attribute of 

 the male bird in the summer or breeding 

 plumage ; but this is a mistake. Both sexes 

 have a black throat in the breeding season, as I 

 know from having observed them when paired, 



