158 BIHDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
same kind of localities_, viz. the edges o£ ponds and streams and bare fields, 
roads and compounds. I have met with it in Burmah from the 16th 
September to the 20th April. 
The only other species of Wagtail of this section with the back perma- 
nently grey is M. per sonata^ and this may be recognized by the sides of the 
head being black. 
162. MOTACILLA OCULARIS. 
SWINHOE^S WAGTAIL. 
Motacilla ocularis, Swinh. Ibis, 1860, p. 55 ; id. P. Z. S. 1870, p. 129, 1871, p. 364 ; 
David et Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 299 ; Seebohm, Ibis, 1878, p. 345 ; Hume 8f Dav, 
S. F. vi. p. 518; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 103; Scully, S. F. viii. p. 315 ; Oates, S. F. 
X. p. 225. 
Description. — Male and female in breeding -plumage. Forehead and crown 
as far back as the eyes_, the face and sides of neck pure white ; remainder 
of the crown and nape_, and a streak extending from the angle of the bill 
through the eye and over the ear-coverts to the nape^ black ; lower sur- 
face from the chin to the lower breast black ; remainder of lower plumage 
white ; back, rump and tail-coverts, and also the smaller wing-coverts, 
pure grey ; larger wing-coverts, secondaries and tertiaries brown^ mar- 
gined on the outer webs with white ; primaries brown, edged with white 
interiorly ; tail black, with the exception of the two outer pairs of rectrices, 
which are white, with a linear patch of black on the edge of the inner webs. 
In winter the black on the head becomes mixed with grey, and in some 
cases the head is nearly entirely grey ; the chin and throat become white, 
and the black on the breast becomes crescentic in shape, spreading narrowly 
up the sides of the neck to the ear- coverts. 
The young have the margins to the wing-coverts and tertiaries narrower_, 
and the forehead, instead of being white, is grey; the whole head is 
suffused with a yellow tinge, and the grey of the upper plumage is much 
less pure white than in the adult ; the black eye-streak is well developed 
from the first. 
Bill black, plumbeous at the base ; iris brown ; legs and claws black. 
Length 8 inches, tail 4, wing 3*85, tarsus "94, bill from gape '8. The 
female is slightly smaller. 
The breeding-plumage is lost in October and resumed in April. During 
the winter months the amount of black on the head and on the throat and 
breast varies very much. The black streak through the eye is constant at 
all seasons. In winter the ear-coverts are generally dashed with dusky. 
Swinhoe^s Wagtail is very abundant in Pegu from the commencement 
V 
