37 



THE PIED AND WHITE WAGTAILS. 



(Plate 2.) 



BY 



H. F. WITHERBY. 



The accompanying plate has been very carefully and 

 accurately drawn by Mr. Gronvold to illustrate sonae of 

 the differences as well as the similarities in the Pied Wagtail 

 {Motacilla a. lugnhris) and the White Wagtail (M. a. alba). 

 The plate is to appear in a forthcoming part of A Practical 

 Handbook of British Birds, but as there is often difficulty in 

 distinguishing the two birds, and as Mr. Gronvold's drawing 

 is so useful, I thought that the readers of British Birds would 

 appreciate the plate even if some of them afterwards see 

 it in the Handbook. 



One point which the plate clearly brings out is the similarity 

 between the adult female White Wagtail and the first summer 

 {i.e., one year old) female Pied Wagtail. In fact, the female 

 Pied Wagtail in this plumage is often so difficult to distin- 

 guish from the female White Wagtail that I always look 

 with suspicion on those records of the interbreeding of the 

 two races in which it is stated that the female was the White 

 Wagtail. If the bird is not obtained I do not believe it is 

 possible to make certain that a female in summer is a White 

 Wagtail and not a first summer Pied, and it is often difhcult 

 enough to do so by a careful comparison of skins. 



The similarities and differences of the two birds in their 

 various plumages are set out below, but I have done this 

 only briefly here, and those who wish to know all the 

 differences in detail should consult the Practical Handbook. 



Males. 



1. Adult Pied Wagtail (Fig. 6) in winter and summer is 

 always distinct because it always has black on its mantle, 

 whereas the White Wagtail never has black on the mantle 

 in any plumage. 



2. Adult White Wagtail (Fig. 8) can be confused in winter 

 with those examples of first winter males and females of the 

 Pied Wagtail which have no black on the mantle. But the 

 Pied in first winter^has the fore -head and ear-coverts tinged with 

 yellowish and the fore-head usually also mottled with black, 

 whereas in the adult White Wagtail these parts are generally 

 pure white but sometimes they have a tinge of yellow. Also 



