YELLOW yfAGTAlh.—MotadUa sulpMrea. 



GREY WAGTAIL.— ilfotoc(7/a canuKslHs. 



This species is not quite so common as the Pied Wagtail, and seems to migrate back- 

 wards and forwards in England according to the temperature. In the northern counties it 

 is a summer visitant, but is more permanently stationed in the southern parts of the 

 island, and mostly breeds in warm, well-watered localities. About Oxford it is far from 

 uncommon ; but although the bird itself might often be seen haunting the river-banks and 

 brooklets which abound in that neighbourhood, I never remember finding its nest. It is 

 a special lover of water, and seldom seems to fly to any great distance from the brook or 

 river in which it finds its food. 



Like the Pied Wagtail, it feeds largely on aquatic insects and larvae, and is also known 

 to eat small water molluscs, not troubling itself to separate the soft body from the hard 

 and sharp-edged shell. 



Of the nesting of this species Mr. Thompson speaks as follows : " The situations 

 generally selected for the nest are holes in walls, the preference being given to those of 

 bridges, about mill-wheels, or otherwise contiguous to water. In the romantic glens ot 

 the Belfast mountains they also build, and for this purpose a pair generally resort to a 

 fissure in the rock, beside a picturesque cascade of ' the Falls,' just such a place as would 

 be chosen by the water-ousel. On the 18th of March, a pair of Grey AVagtails, 'with 

 black patch on throat,' have been noted, apparently contemplating nidification, at AVolf 

 Hill, by minutely examining their former breeding haunts ; and on the 1 2th of May the 

 young of the first brood were seen on wing, though still requiring their parents' aid to feed 

 them. Occasionally there is a second brood. 'The nest is generally formed of grasses or 

 other delicate plants, and lined with horsehair. It is singular that they generally manage 



