124 WHITE WAGTAIL. 
moreover it appears that there is a regular spring-migration through 
Coll, Tiree, and some of the Outer Hebrides. Saxby says that he 
obtained the White Wagtail in Shetland in May and June. In Ireland 
it is as yet little known; Mr. R. Warren shot one in co. Mayo on 
April 25th 1851, and another on April 29th 1893, while Mr. 
Barrington has a speciinen obtained on Achill Island in May 1894. 
The White Wagtail is a regular visitor to the Feeroes and Iceland, 
wandering to the Island of Jan Mayen and the south of Greenland. 
It is found over the whole of Europe and of Northern Asia ; the 
Siberian birds, which are of a purer grey on the upper parts, wintering 
in India and Burma ; while the ordinary form occurs in Asia Minor, 
Palestine and Northern Africa in summer and winter, visiting 
Madeira, the Canaries and Senegambia on the west, and Zanzibar 
on the east, in the latter season. It is one of the earliest species 
to return to those northern summer-quarters from which cold and 
want of food have forced it to migrate at the end of autumn ; the 
males arriving about a week before the females. 
The sites for the nest are similar to those chosen by the former 
species ; but the White Wagtail has further been known to breed 
in the burrow of a Sand-Martin, and also to make its nest in 
an open place in the middle of a strawberry-bed. The 5-7 eggs 
are sometimes of a rather bluer grey, with bolder ashy markings, 
than those of the Pied Wagtail; but frequently they cannot be 
distinguished, and the average measurements are identical. In 
general habits, food and haunts, the White Wagtail hardly differs 
from our indigenous bird ; I have seen flocks whitening the furrows 
in Spain and the south of France, as Mr. Gurney has in Algeria. 
The adult male in breeding-plumage has the forehead and the 
sides of the head and neck white; crown and nape black ; back 
and rump ash-grey ; upper wing- and median coverts tipped with 
white ; quills blackish, the long inner secondaries edged outside 
with white ; tail-feathers black, except the two outer pairs which 
are mainly white ; chin, throat, and breast black ; abdomen white ; 
flanks grey; bill, legs and feet black. Length 7°5 in.; wing 3°5 in. 
The female has a shorter tail; her colours are less pure, and the 
black portions are more restricted. After the autumn moult the 
chin and throat are white, and the black is reduced to a crescentic 
band. In the young the white forehead, cheeks and throat are 
tinged with yellow, and the head and mantle are olive-grey, but 
males soon show white on the forehead and black on the throat. 
Long before the following spring the olive tint has disappeared, 
and the young have a light appearance. 
