THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 337 



148. Yellow-headed Wagtail [GELBKOPFIGE BACHSTELZE]. 

 MOTACILLA CITREOLA, Pallas. 



Motacilla citreola. Naumann, xiii.; Blasius, Nachtrdge, 117. 



Yellow-headed Wagtail. Dresser, iii. 245. 



Bergeronnette citrine. Temminck, Manuel, i. 259, iii. 180. 



Although the westerly limit of the breeding range of this 

 beautiful Wagtail extends to the most north-easterly portion of 

 European Russia, where Seebohm and Harvie- Brown met with it 

 nesting numerously from latitude 66 to 68 N., I have nevertheless 

 met with it in Heligoland only five times within the long 

 space of forty years ; nor does this species, with the exception of 

 these examples, appear to have occurred anywhere else west of its 

 breeding range as above defined ; therefore it would seem, like the 

 rest of its genus, to adhere in its migration to a strictly north-to- 

 south line of flight. All the examples shot here are young birds 

 in the early autumn plumage ; they are very like individuals of 

 Motacilla alba of the same age, but are at once distinguished by 

 the absence of the black circular collar on the upper breast, and by 

 their long spur. In most examples the upper as well as the lower 

 parts have a tinge of olivaceous green ; in the first of my examples, 

 however, which I obtained here on the 26th of September 1848, 

 this olivaceous colour is entirely absent, the bird being pure ash- 

 grey and white, and exactly resembling Sturm's representation 

 (Naumann, xiii., pi. 377, fig. 4), except that the crown of the head 

 and the forehead are not as white as they are figured there ; in fact, 

 in none of my examples is the forehead so light-coloured. The 

 last of the birds of this species which has occurred here is the 

 largest and handsomest in my possession, and was shot on the 

 28th of December 1886 ; all the upper parts and the sides of the 

 upper breast are very dark grey, almost blackish grey, the sides 

 being of somewhat lighter grey. All the lower parts are white, the 

 under tail-coverts being pure white, while the throat, foreneck, and 

 mid-breast, and especially the sides of the face and the white eye- 

 streaks, are shot with pale lemon yellow. The wing- and tail-feathers 

 are black; the secondary quill-feathers, and especially the three 

 posterior flight-feathers, have broad white outer edges, as is also the 

 case with the greater and middle wing-coverts, which, moreover, 

 have broad white tips, forming two very striking bands across 

 the wing. In the tail the outermost feathers are pure white, 

 the second pan* of the same colour, with black wedge-shaped stripes 

 on the inner webs, which are broadest towards the bases of the 



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