NOTES AND QUERIES. 337 



Rutland,' published in 1889, the author refers to the Grey Wagtail as 

 follows: — "A winter migrant, sparingly distributed, and not recorded as 

 remaining to breed in the counties." The sentence italicised is wholly mis- 

 leading and contrary to the fact. In the spring of 1878 I found the Grey 

 Wagtail nesting in the bank of the Eye Brook, close to Skeffington Wood ; 

 the young were fledged by the end of the first week in May, and there was 

 an addled egg left in the nest, on which, by the way, I one morning dis- 

 covered the hen-bird sitting. This was the first verified instance of the 

 species breeding in Leicestershire ; yet, in spite of remonstrance, my note 

 on the subject was discarded by the author of the work quoted above on 

 the score that I must have mistaken the Yellow, or Ray's, for the Grey 

 Wagtail ! Nevertheless, apart from the fact that, according to my experi- 

 ence, Yellow Wagtails do not repair to the banks of streams for purposes 

 of nidification, I should consider the end of the first week in May in 

 any year an early date for a full clutch of eggs of this species (vide Zool. 

 1896, p. 354). I should add that the Curator of the Leicester Museum 

 has since expressed regrets at having excluded — on no other grounds 

 but those of unwarranted scepticism— a perfectly authenticated communi- 

 cation on a subject of interest to all scientific ornithologists in this midland 

 county, he himself having chanced upon a pair of Grey Wagtails breeding 

 within the last half-dozen years somewhere or other in the Loughborough 

 district. It has been well said that seeing is believing ! While recognizing 

 and making full allowance for the difficulties encountered by compilers in 

 sifting the wheat from the chaff when engaged in ornithological researches 

 with a view to publication, and, at the same time, cordially approving of the 

 judgment which prompts the suppression of the thousand and one notes 

 which deal with the fancied identification of rare species here and there as 

 they momentarily flit across the gaze of the observer, one cannot help 

 regretting that duly authenticated discoveries, backed by "chapter and 

 verse " and all the proof that can be considered needful, should be excluded 

 from embodiment in what purposes to be the trustworthy history of a 

 county's avifauna, and so lost to science. And my lament, too, is the more 

 emphasized when I reflect that such exclusion is capable of being based 

 upon what I can only designate as mere editorial caprice. — H. S. Daven- 

 port (Ormandyne, Melton Mowbray). 



White Wagtails in Warwickshire.— Amongst the many Pied Wagtails 

 that visit the locality of Sutton Coldfield during their spring movements, I 

 have for years been on the look-out for the White Wagtail, Motacilla alba, 

 amongst their numbers. On May 2nd I was pleased to be able to identify 

 a pair of these birds along the dams of Wyndley Pool, which were so tame 

 as to allow me to advance within a few feet of them. Walking thence 

 to Powell's Pool, another pair were noticed amongst a quantity of Pied 



