130 YELLOW WAGTAIL. 
accidental occurrence in Italy, Sicily, and Malta ; while southward, 
its migrations extend down the coast of W. Africa as far as the 
Gaboon. A large and isolated colony is said to inhabit the valley 
of the Lower Volga, the Caspian region, and Turkestan as far east 
as the Altai Mountains; the migrations of this section reaching 
along the eastern side of Africa as far as Natal. In Eastern Asia 
the representative species is JZ taivana. 
The nest, built early in May and generally well concealed, is 
placed in a depression or a small furrow of the ground in a meadow 
or corn-field ; sometimes in a bank, or at the foot of a wall, among 
the long rank herbage. Even in the same locality there is con- 
siderable variation in the materials employed ; moss and dry grass 
being generally used for the exterior, while the lining may be of 
feathers, hair, rabbit’s-down, or fine roots. The 4-6 eggs are 
greyish-white mottled with clay-brown, and often have some black 
hair-streaks: measurements "78 by °56 in. A second brood is 
sometimes reared in the season. The food consists of the small 
thin-shelled molluscs found among water-meadows, and various 
kinds of insects; and the bird is as partial as the Blue-headed 
Wagtail to the proximity of grazing cattle. In its note and in the 
bold curves of its flight, it also resembles that species ; it is, how- 
ever, rather more addicted to perching on low bushes and fences. 
Adult male in breeding-plumage: lores, ear-coverts and back, 
greenish-olive ; the forehead yellower ; a sulphur-yellow streak over 
the eye and ear-coverts on each side; wing-coverts and quills dusky- 
brown, tipped and margined with pale buff; tail-feathers blackish- 
brown, except the two outer pairs which are white, merely edged 
with black on the inner webs ; under parts rich sulphur-yellow ; bill, 
legs and feet black. Length about 6°25 in.; wing 3:15 in. The 
female is browner on the upper parts, and the eye-streak and under 
parts are less yellow. In autumn the adults of both sexes become 
much paler. The young in the first and nestling-plumage, which is 
only worn for a short time, are greenish-brown on the upper parts, 
and buff on the breast, much resembling young Pipits; later they 
turn yellow on the vent and under parts, and gradually become like 
their parents, though the sides of the neck and the breast are spotted 
with dark brown for some time. 
For those Wagtails which exhibit a prevalence of yellow in their 
plumage and have also a longer hind-claw than the Black-and-white 
Wagtails, Cuvier established the genus Budytes ; and, inasmuch as 
the Grey Wagtail presented intermediate characters, Kaup invented 
for it the genus Cadobates. 
