THE WAGTAILS. 97 



Habit.3. These are, as might be expected, very similar to 

 those of M. higubris, and, like that species, the White Wagtail 

 is a very lively and active little bird, pursuing insects with the 

 same elastic and rapid movements. 



Nest. Similar to that of the Pied Wagtail, with which 

 species it certainly interbreeds on certain occasions. In the 

 western corridor at the British Museum (N.H.) can be seen a 

 Wagtail's nest sent by Lord Walsingham, and procured by his 

 keeper in Norfolk. The male bird is undoubtedly a White 

 Wagtail, while the female is a Pied Wagtail, and a second 

 instance of such interbreeding has been noticed by Dr. Gun- 

 ther in Suffolk. 



Eggs. Five to six. Generally indistinguishable from those 

 of M. lugubriS) but in the Seebohm collection in the British 

 Museum are some very curious variations in markings. The 

 ground colour is decidedly more bluish-white than in eggs 

 of M. lugubris, and the same styles of eggs with the stone-grey 

 ground and the fine specklings, which are seen in the latter 

 species, are also frequent in a series of eggs of M. alba. 

 There is, however, in the latter species an occasional tendency 

 to produce a brownish egg, wherein the ground-colour is dull 

 white, almost entirely hidden by marblinjs and spots of light 

 brown or reddish-brown, especially marked in a clutch taken 

 by Mr. Seebohm in the Petchora Valley, and again distinct in 

 another clutch from Valkensvaard in Holland, but in the latter 

 case the markings are not so strongly exemplified. One egg in 

 the British Museum, from Holland, is white with the large end 

 black, an unusual variation in a Wagtail's egg. Axis, o'8-o*9 

 inch; diam., o'6-cr65. 



THE GREY WAGTAIL. MOTACILLA MELANOPE. 

 (Plate XIII.) 



Motarilla melanope, Pall. Reise. Russ. Reichs, iii., App., p. 



696 (1776); Dresser, B. Eur., iii., p. 251, pi. 128 (1875); 



B. O. U. List Br. B., p. 30 (1883); Sharpe, Cat. B. 



Brit. Mus., x., p. 497 (1885); Saunders, Man., p. 117 



(1889) ; Wyatt, Br. B., pi. 8, figs, i, 2 (1894). 

 Motacilla boarula^ Macg., Br. B., ii., p. 235 (1839). 



1 H 



