MOTACILLID. 123 
THE WHITE WAGTAIL. 
MoTACcILLA ALBA, Linnzus. 
2 
This Continental representative of the familiar species already 
described was first recognized in England by the late Mr. F. Bond, 
who found two pairs at Kingsbury Reservoir, Middlesex, in the latter 
part of May 1841. Since that date it has occurred in a good many 
counties of England, being not uncommon in Cornwall in spring ; 
Mr. Haigh found it numerous in North Wales on the spring passages 
of 1891 and 1897 ; and it is said to have nested in Devon, the Isle of 
Wight, Kent, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Huntingdon- 
shire. Of a pair of birds obtained with their nest and young in 
Norfolk, presented to the British Museum by Lord Walsingham, the 
male is a White and the female is a Pied Wagtail ; Dr. Giinther has 
informed me of a similar case of interbreeding in Suffolk ; and Mr. 
Aplin has recorded another, with the sexes reversed, in Oxfordshire. 
Mr. Cordeaux mentions several occurrences in Lincolnshire, in 
spring ; competent observers have noticed the species in Notting- 
hamshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumberland; and on May 
24th 1885 I watched an adult, probably a male, by some lead-works 
near Langley Castle in Northumberland. In Scotland the White 
Wagtail has been observed in some of the southern counties ; while 
pairs have been noticed near Gairloch, in Ross-shire; Booth saw 
several couples in April on the river bank at Inverness, and a number 
on the island of Lewis early in May 1877, after rough weather ; 
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