97 



THE YELLOW WAGTAIL. 



Motacilla rail (Bona]).). 



The Yellow Waotail arrived along the whole of the south 

 coast, but mainly on the eastern half. 



Early stragglers were recorded in Suffolk on the .16th of 

 March and in Berkshire on the 26th. A small party o£ 

 twenty arrived in Somerset on the 30th, and passed north- 

 wards on the 1st o£ April, on which day a few arrived in 

 Kent. Immigration did not, however, begin in earnest until 

 a week later. Between the 8th and 10th there were small 

 arrivals, chiefly of males, in Sussex, Kent and Devon, and 

 most of these seem to have settled down before they had 

 penetrated far from their points of arrival. 



A second immigration, also consisting chiefly of males, 

 occurred between the 13th and 21st from Hampshire east- 

 wards. The westernmost of these birds seem to have travelled 

 north-west into Wales, Lancashire and Cheshire, and the 

 eastern ones passed into the eastern Midlands and East 

 Anglia : meantime some of the earlier arrivals in the west 

 had penetrated as far north as Renfrew and Ayr. 



A third immigration, containing the majority of the females, 

 arrived in Kent during the following week and at the western 

 extremity of the south coast about the 24th. With the 

 arrival of these, increased numbers were reported from all 

 over the kingdom, and by the end of the first week in May 

 the birds had begun to settle down. They were nesting in 

 Suffolk on the 11th and in Derby on the 18th, while nests 

 with eggs M'ere found in Cambridge on the 13th^ in Kent on 

 the 21st, and in Derby on the 25th. Further small arrivals 

 seem to have taken place at the western end of the south 

 coast on the 2nd and 9th of May, but their destiiuition was 

 not indicated by the records. 



