GREY WAGTAIL. 219 



met with, I have not seen the grey one, and during a week spent 

 at the end of June, 1832, in the wild district of Dunfanaghy, in 

 the north-west of Donegal, where the pied was common, not one 

 of the grey species was observed. Such was also the case in other 

 localities of a similar nature, which I have visited on the northern 

 and western coasts. With respect to Scotland, Mr. Macgil- 

 livray, — who gives a very full description of its habits, — observes, 

 that " it is of very rare occurrence to the north of Inverness,"* and 

 is not met with in the Outer Hebrides." He notes it, as " gene- 

 rally distributed in the lower and more cultivated parts," vol. ii. 

 p. 240. 



The grey wagtail, like the pied, is permanently resident through- 

 out Ireland, but in the north of England is little known, except 

 as a summer visitant, and in the south,t as a winter one ; as such 

 only it was noticed by White at Selborne, though now mentioned, 

 as occasionally breeding there. J For many years, I have remarked 

 its presence during every winter in the counties of Down and An- 

 trim, and about the mountain rivulets, as well as those adjacent 

 to the sea. When frost and snow have driven the woodcocks 

 from the mountain heaths to the covers, and the snipes from 

 the marshes to the unfrozen springs, I have observed the grey 

 wagtail in its summer haunts, about the ponds at the moun- 

 tainous locality of Wolf-hill. At this season, and late in the 

 autumn, it is occasionally seen in places of a very different charac- 

 ter — in the extensive tan-yards, &c, of Belfast. The curator of 

 the museum in this town informs me, that during the winter of 

 1843^44 (his own first season there) a pair of these birds regularly 

 frequented the yard, and that they disappeared at the end of March, 

 doubtless with a view to country quarters for the summer. 

 Towards the end of August, a pair re-appeared, which, from their 



* It was occasionally seen about the door of my friend's shooting lodge at Aberar- 

 der, sixteen miles south of Inverness, during the month of September, 1842. I have re- 

 marked it in autumn, frequenting the rivulets of Ayr-shire, but perhaps less com- 

 monly than about Belfast. 



t On August 28th, I saw it in the gravelly bed of the river, at Dole, in France ; in 

 the third week of March at Ogley Pool, North Wales. 



+ Yarr. B. B. vol. i. p. 372. 



