THE PIED WAGTAIL 



any dead vegetable refuse, lined with hair, wool, and 

 feathers. The five or six eggs are greyish white, freckled 

 and spotted with pale brown and grey, and occasionally 

 scratched with dark brown. The young keep in company 

 with their parents for some time, and many of the later 

 broods remain together through the winter, during which 

 season the bird is more or less gregarious. 



The adult male Pied Wagtail in summer plumage has 

 the upper parts black, except the forehead, ear-coverts, and 

 the sides of the neck, which are white ; the wing-coverts 

 are marked with white, and the inner secondaries and two 

 outside tail-feathers are white; the other wing and tail- 

 feathers are black. The throat and upper breast are black, 

 which joins the black of the upper parts at the shoulder 

 and isolates the white on the sides of the neck from the 

 white of the remainder of the under parts. Bill black; 

 tarsi and toes black ; irides brown. Length about 73- 

 inches. The female in similar plumage resembles the 

 male, but the colours of the upper parts are never so pure, 

 and mottled with grey. The nestling is nearly uniform 

 grey, and after the first moult the white parts then assumed 

 are suffused with yellow. In winter plumage the adult 

 has a white throat, and the black on the breast is repre- 

 sented by a crescentic band ; the back is grey, and the 

 nape black. 



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