GREY WAGTAIL. 205 



by a slight effort of the wings, and displaying at the same time the yel- 

 lowish green of the upper tail-coverts and the conspicuous white feathers 

 in the tail. When alarmed they will generally fly up from the stream with 

 an undulating desultory flight, and, as often as not, take refuge in a tree, 

 from which, if you happen to be too near their nest, they will keep up an 

 incessant chiz-zit, often preceded by a prolonged plaintive note/Tike hoo-in. 

 As the summer advances they leave the localities where they have reared 

 their young, as I believe most other birds do, and, still following the 

 streams, slowly migrate towards warmer regions. Late in the summer I 

 have seen them on the stones in the Porter and the Don, sometimes run- 

 ning along the roof of a steel warehouse by the river-side in the centre of 

 Sheffield. I have almost always found the nest of the Grey Wagtail under 

 an overhanging ledge of rock, built upon the clay or rocky bank, and well 

 concealed behind grass and other herbage. Once only I saw one built in 

 the fork of three sterns of an alder, close to the ground, almost overhanging 

 the river. I remember once being shown the place in which a Grey 

 Wagtail's nest, containing four eggs, had been taken the day previously 

 by my friend Mr. Charles Doncaster, who substituted for them four Wren's 

 eggs. We were surprised to find the four Wren's eggs gone, the white 

 cow-hair lining having been ejected with them. A fifth Grey Wagtail's 

 egg had been laid in the damaged nest, which turned out to have been 

 built upon the ruins of an old Thrush's nest containing broken egg-shells. 

 The Grey Wagtail seems to have a great attachment for its favourite breed- 

 ing-places. I have found the nest year after year upon the same ledge of 

 a rocky bank. The eggs are laid towards the end of April or early in 

 May. The nest is very similar to that of the Pied Wagtail, a trifle smaller 

 inside, and perhaps a little deeper, and even more carefully made. It is 

 almost entirely composed of fine roots, with a few stalks of dry grass in the 

 outer and coarser portions, and is lined with cow-hair, the preference 

 being given to white. I have never seen any feathers used, although 

 Macgillivray, Yarrell, and other naturalists assert that such help to form 

 the lining of the nest. 



In the spring of 1873 I had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance 

 with this charming bird in the classic region of the Parnassus, in a locality 

 very similar to the wilder Derbyshire dales. The little village of Agoriane, 

 between three and four thousand feet above the level of the sea, enjoys a 

 climate very similar to that of the High Peak of Derbyshire. The foliage 

 in the neighbourhood is also very similar ; you meet with the hawthorn, the 

 oak, and the holly, as well as the bramble, ivy, and the dog-rose. Many 

 of the birds, too, are the same. Not far from the village flows a mountain- 

 stream, conveying the melted snow of the Parnassus down to the Topolais 

 .Marsh, the Dead Sea of Greece. This stream runs at the bottom of a 

 deep mountain-gorge, singularly wild and picturesque, in many places all 



