126 GREY WAGTAIL. 
found in summer across Asia (south of about 67° N. lat.) to Persia, 
Turkestan, the Himalayas, Northern China and Japan ; wintering as 
far south as the Indo-Malayan islands, and down to Somali-land in 
Africa. 
The nest is placed usually near a stream, in some rugged portion 
of a bank, occasionally among the stems of a shrub, frequently in a 
rough stone wall or some crevice of the rocks. In the Pyrenees, 
where the Grey Wagtail is very abundant, I observed a nest behind 
a pair of votive crutches at the entrance to the grotto at Lourdes. 
The materials employed are moss, soft grass and fine roots, with 
abundance of hair for a lining. The eggs, usually 5 in number, are 
greyish-white, mottled with pale clay-colour, and sometimes marked 
with a few black hair-streaks at the larger end: measurements °75 
by ‘55 in. Two broods are occasionally reared in the season ; the 
first eggs being laid in April; and the male takes his share in the 
task of incubation. The food consists of aquatic and other insects, 
small molluscs and crustaceans ; and at the baths of Dax in the 
Landes, a pair of birds which frequented the courtyard of the hotel 
used to enter the open windows of the thronged corridors, with the 
utmost familiarity, in search of flies. The call-note is a sharply 
uttered zis 27. In its constant and rapid movements this species 
resembles its allies, but it is decidedly more addicted to perching on 
trees by the side of streams. 
The adult male in breeding-plumage has the crown and ear-coverts 
slate-grey, with a narrow white streak above the eye ; below the lores, 
which are black, a broad white line runs on each side to the nape, which 
is slate-grey, as are the mantle and rump; wing-feathers brownish- 
black, the long secondaries margined with buffish-white ; upper tail- 
coverts greenish-yellow ; the outside pair of tail-feathers white, the 
next two pairs also white with a black stripe along part of the outer 
web, the remainder brownish-black ; chin and throat black ; breast 
to lower tail-coverts sulphur-yellow ; bill dark brown; legs and feet 
pale brown. Length from 7 to 7°5 in., depending upon the length 
of the tail, which is variable; wing 3°3 in. The female has a 
shorter tail than the male, and her tints are duller and greener, while 
on the throat she has far less black, and usually none at all. That 
part becomes white in both sexes in autumn, when a buff tint 
appears on the breast. The young bird is browner than the female, 
and its eye-stripe is buff. This species has bred, in captivity, with 
the Pied Wagtail, and the hybrids proved fertile. 
