BIRDS. 



265 



mere patch of wood round the shooting-lodge. It is seen 

 occasionally in all seasons in the Laigh of Moray, and along the 

 lower courses of the streams in winter, though no doubt the bulk 

 are migratory. 



To illustrate their abundance, we may say that careful attention 

 to their distribution in May or June along the river Deveron 

 convinced us that about one pair is to be found upon every mile 

 of river, which on the Deveron alone would give a total of about 

 forty-five to fifty pairs, deducting about five miles of the very 

 highest reaches. Brown considers that it disappears from the 

 Forres neighbourhood in winter. In 1852 Edward speaks of it as 

 a 'very scarce bird' near Banff {in lit. to Professor Newton), he having 

 found only one of their nests that year, but in a later letter to the 

 same gentleman he mentions having walked over a hundred miles 

 and seen 'many Grey Wagtails.' Perhaps nowhere have we found 

 them more abundant in Scotland than on the Deveron and Fiddich 

 in 1884-85, 1890, 1894, but scarcer in 1895. 



In Upper Badenoch Mr. C. H. Alston found a few pairs 

 (probably in about the same proportion as we have observed 

 elsewhere), and ' later, several families were seen in August.' 



In 1893 either very large additions were made to their numbers, 

 or on the lower reaches of the river Deveron near Turriff there had 

 been always larger numbers. We have said that the other reaches 

 from Corniehaugh up held one pair to every mile of water, but 

 about Drachlaw and Netherdale, and lower down, we cannot be far 

 wrong in fixing the numbers at not less than three pairs to the 

 mile — believing that to be a very modest computation. By May 

 8th, young Grey Wagtails were on wing, and the parent birds 

 preparing and laying again. Hinxman found several pairs nesting 

 as high up the Avon as Inchrory, but we did not find any patent 

 increase on Upper Deveron in June. 



[Motacilla flava, L. Blue-headed Wagtail. 



St. John, at page 311 of his Natural History and Sport in Moray, says :— 

 * There is another species (of Wagtail), not much known, named 

 the Motacilla flava, differing from the last in having the head of a 

 blue-grey colour. I have never killed tliis bird, but have little 

 doubt that it might be found,' Mr. Millais has informed us that 

 the only rare bird he ever shot on the shores of the Moray Firth 



