MOTACILLIN^. 



165 



inner webs, and tipped with white ; the inner webs of the innermost 

 narrowly margined with white ; tail black, the two outermost feathers 

 on each side white, except a margin of dark brown on their inner webs, 

 which is broader on the next outermost ; breast, belly, vent, under 

 tail and wing-coverts white; edge of the wing and thigh-coverts 

 white, with a few dark spots ; bill and legs black ; irides dark brown. 



Length. — 8"25 to 9 inches, wing 3-75 to 4, tail 4, bill at front 0'5, 

 tarsi I'O. 



Hab.— Nearly throughout India. Occurs in Sind, Kutch, Rajputana, 

 Guzerat, Concan and Deccan, Khandeish, Berars, Central and Southern 

 India, Ceylon and Sikkim. 



Motacilla personata, Gould. B. of Asia, pi. ; Hume, Sir. F.vol. i. 

 26 to 30 ; iii. 250; Murray, Rdhk., Zool., 8)-c., Sind, -p. 166 ; Gray, Cat. 

 B. Br. Mvs. p. 246. Motacilla dukhenensis, Jerd. B, Ind. ii, p. 218, 

 No. 591. 



Adult Male. — A broad frontal band extending to the front of the 

 eye and forming a narrow supercilium, white ; sides of the face, ear- 

 coverts, chin, throat, lower parts from below the breast, and under 

 wing-coverts white ; crown and nape black ; breast black ; back, rump 

 and upper tail-coverts grey, the upper tail-coverts darker; primaries 

 dusky brown, the outer webs darker ; secondaries and tertiaries darker 

 brown, margined on their outer webs and tipped with white ; the 

 secondaries margined for the basal half on their inner webs with 

 white ; tail black, the two outermost feathers on each side white, except 

 a dark brown margin on their inner webs ; bill and legs black ; irides 

 brown. 



Length. — 7'5 to 8 inches, wing 3'6 to 3' 7 inches, tail 4*5 to 4' 75, 

 bill at front 0- 75. 



Hah. — Sind, Punjab, N. W. Provinces, Oudh, Central Provinces, 

 Beloochistan, Persia, South Afghanistan, East Turkistan ; also in Raj- 

 putana. A winter visitant throughout India ; breeds in Persia. 



The Wagtails of India have been fully treated of by Mr. Hume, in 

 vols. I. and II. of Stray Feathers, in respect to the distinctness of the 

 several species occuring in India, and the outcome of his investigations 

 has placed the present species under the name it bears here, and 591 

 M. dukhenensis, of Sykes, the next species, is made a distinct species ; 

 both are winter visitants to the province. " In winter" Mr. Hume says, 

 " both M. personata and dukhenensis entirely lose in both sexes the 

 black of the head, which is replaced in the male by a dark, in the 

 female by a light, grey. The black of the chin, throat, and breast is 

 reduced in dukhenensis to a moderately broad more or less crescentic 

 pectoral band with two ill-defined broken blackish stripes running up 

 the side of the neck, as it were from the points of the crescent, which 

 stripes never, I think, entirely disappear, though in some specimens they 

 become entirely obsolete ; the broad white frontal band remains un- 

 changed in width or nearly so in the adult male, though its colour is less 

 pure ; but in the female it is greatly diminished in width so as in some 



