2S 4 



cassell's book of birds. 



of a grey or blueish white hue, thickly spotted and streaked with grey ; the second batch of eggs is 

 produced in June. The female alone broods, but both parents assist in the business of feeding the 

 hungry nestlings, who grow with great rapidity, and are soon able to take care of themselves. In the 

 autumn young and old again assemble, and pass the night in reed-covered marshy localities, in 

 company with Swallows and Starlings ; as the season advances these parties increase to large flocks, 

 which during the day fly from one ploughed field or pasture to another, always keeping in a direct 

 course towards their winter quarters, and, when night has set in, they rise together into the air, and. 

 amid loud outcries, start forth upon their long and wearisome pilgrimage. 



THE WHITE WAGTAIL {Motacilla alba). 



" The belief expressed in the first part of this work," says Mr. Yarrell, in his third edition of his 

 valuable work on British Birds, " that this species is the true Motacilla alba of Linnaeus, has been 

 verified in several instances ; the coloured figures and descriptions of Swedish and other Continental 

 authors leave us no room to doubt, and when the subject has been further investigated, it will 

 probably be found that the present species is the real Motacilla alba, and therefore called the White 

 Wagtail. It is only a summer visitor to Britain, while many of the better known Pied Wagtails 

 remain with us all the year." 



In the south of Sweden, where this Wagtail appears about the time the ice is breaking up, it is 

 called " Is Spjarna ' — literally, the " kicker away of the ice." In some places it goes also by the name 

 of the " Kok Aria," or the " Clod Wagtail," because it is so constantly seen amongst the clods in the 



