NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



459 



and its favorite haunts are meadows in the vicinity of water, villages and old houses. 

 It nests on the ground among the grass of the meadows, in crevices of rocks or old 

 buildings; in the roots of trees along the banks of streams; under bridges. The 

 nests are constructed of small stems, twigs, grass, straws, leaves and rootlets, the 

 lining being of wool and hair. The eggs are four, five, six or even seven in number. A 

 set of six eggs in my cabinet, taken May 10, 1880, in Staffordshire, England, have a 

 grayish-white ground-color, and are speckled all over the surface with minute ash- 

 gray specks. Several single specimens have markings that are of a decided dark 

 brown color. The set of six measure: .77x.58, .79x.56, .76x.55, .79x.59, .78x.56, 

 .77X.57. The average size is .75x.55 inches. 



[695.] SWINHOE'S WAGTAIL. Montacilla ocularis Swinh. Geog. Dist.— 

 Eastern Asia. Accidental in Lower California and Aleutian Islands. 



Mr. Nelson says: "Although this bird has been taken repeatedly at Plover Bay, 

 Siberia, and thence throughout a large portion of Northeastern Asia, including China 

 and Formosa, to the Lake Baikal region, it appears to be almost unknown in 

 Alaska. In fact its claim as a bird of the territory rests upon the capture of a single 

 specimen, a young bird in summer plumage, by Captain Kellett and Lieutenant 

 Wood in "Northwest America," as recorded in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Birds, X, 473. The 

 Wagtail seen by Mr. Turner on Attu Island, on the western extreme of the Aleutian 

 chain, may possibly have been of this species, but it is far more probable that it was 

 the M. lugens which Dr. Stejneger found common upon the Commander Islands. A 

 single specimen of ocularis was taken by Mr. Belding at La Pai, Lower California, 

 during the winter of 1881-82. It is scarcely necessary to add that its occurrence at 

 this point, so far from its home, is entirely accidental. The western limit of this 



695. SwiNHOfi's Wagtail (From Turner.) 



bird in Siberia is given by Seebohm as the water-shed between the Yenesei and the 

 Lena Rivers; thence east it has been taken in many portions of the continent, in- 

 cluding Mongolia, Chukchi land, and the localities previously mentioned." 



696. SIBEKIAN YELLOW WAGTAIL. Budytes flams leucostriatus (Horn.) 

 Geog. Dist. — Alaska, north of the Peninsula; Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka, winter- 

 ing in Eastern China. 



