178 THE BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL 



awl-shaped, and black, as are also the slender legs. It 

 builds its nest on the edge of the water in all sorts of 

 places : in holes, between stones, in cracks in the earth, 

 among roots or in wood-stacks. It lays sometimes as 

 many as eight, but usually five white eggs, finely 

 speckled with dark colour, the speckling thicker at the 

 larger end, in a ring round the egg. 



THE BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL. 

 (Motacilla flava.) 



THIS very handsome little bird, which is smaller than 

 the White Wagtail, and does not wag its tail so much, 

 inhabits the low Hungarian plain, and the pastureland 

 generally of the open country, especially moist moor- 

 lands, and the banks of marshes, where it keeps close 

 to the grazing animals, which are mostly swine and 

 buffaloes. When swine trample down the bank of the 

 ponds the bird approaches, and picks up the water 

 insects and larvae which have been exposed in the 

 disturbed ground, or if the buffaloes trample the earth on 

 the edge of the marsh the Wagtail is sure to be close on 

 their heels to secure its share of food. It builds its nest 

 in the grasses of the meadow or at the roots of the 

 bushes in the hedge. It usually lays five eggs, which 

 have light flecks on a dingy white ground. 



A bird I always looked for eagerly in the days of my 

 youth, on our Staffordshire moorlands was the Yellow 



