BIRDS OP THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 41 



INSESSOBES DENTIEOSTEES. MOTACILLIDJE. 



68. MOTACILLA YARRELLI, Gould. Pied Wagtail. 



Provincial. Oat-bird, Dish-washer. 



A resident throughout the year, but partially 

 migratory, a small proportion only of our summer 

 birds remaining through the winter, during which 

 season, in company with Pipits and an occasional 

 Stone-Chat, they resort to the turnip-fields, remaining 

 in close attendance upon the folded sheep, and suc- 

 ceed in picking up a tolerable sustenance by search- 

 ing amongst the fangs of the freshly pulled bulbs for 

 the eggs and larvae of various insects. The gradual 

 increased area placed under turnip-cultivation in our 

 marshes during the last fifteen years has supplied for 

 these and kindred species a source of winter food pre- 

 viously unattainable, and offers inducements to these 

 delicate birds to brave even the severest winters in 

 our inhospitable marshes. Previously to the general 

 cultivation of the root-crop they were not known as 

 winter residents. In the winter succeeding the dry 

 summer and autumn of 1868, when the turnip-crop 

 throughout North Lincolnshire was almost a complete 

 failure, no Wagtails remained, although the season 

 was unusually mild and free from frosts. 



There are always large arrivals of these little birds 

 in our marshes from the second week in March to the 

 end of the month, some of which remain to breed ; 

 the rest, after a residence of about ten days or a fort- 



