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YELLOW WAGTAIL. 



Jlotacilla //am, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



Bttfigtes Rayi, PllINCE OF MUSIONANO. MEYER. 



Motacilla A Wagtail. Ffava Yellow. 



Tins is a common species with us in summer, but most so 

 in the southern and midland counties. It is not numerous 

 either in Ireland or Scotland. In the Orkneys it has been 

 observed several times. One was shot near Kirkwall, by Mr. 

 Ranken, in the autumn of 1845; and another was seen near 

 the same place on the 25th. of September, 1847. 



Water courses, water meadows, and such like localities, are 

 the choice of the Yellow Wagtail; but it also, like the others 

 of the genus to which it belongs, frequents at times, and 

 even more than they do, very dissimilar places, such as open 

 downs and pastures, ploughed fields, and various other situa- 

 tions. On their first arrival I have often noticed them in 

 numbers in fields that had been flooded, the saturation of 

 moisture doubtless bringing many insects within reach. They 

 have been observed perching on the stems of plants in quest 

 of these. They not unfrequently appear on the lawns in 

 front of houses. 



The Yellow Wagtail migrates hither in summer, and leaves 

 us again in time to avoid the hyemal blasts, which those 

 which stay behind must feel. It arrives about the end of 

 March, or the beginning or middle of April, and leaves the 

 north of the kingdom for the south, about the middle of 

 August or September. 



These birds will occasionally pursue insects on the wing, 



VOL. II. N 



