GREY-HEADED YELLOW WAGTAIL — RAY’s WAGTAIL — MEADOW-PIPIT. 
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G KEY-HEADED YELLOW \^WGTAIL. Motacilla viridis (Gmelin). 
Mr. Macaulay (‘Mid. Nat.,’ 1881, p. 257) writes: — “I observed the Grey- 
headed Wagtail near Kibworth, on May 2nd, 1880.” As this species has never 
yet occuiTed in Britain, Mr. jMacaulay concurs with me now in thinking that he 
must have been mistaken. 
KAY’S WAGTAIL. Motacilla raii (Bonaparte). 
“ Yellow Wagtail.” 
A summer migrant, generally distributed, and breeding. Common in the 
meadows of the Soar around Leicester. — Harley remarked that on its first arrival 
it affects the newly-ploughed lands, its food at that season mainly consisting of 
grubs, worms, and aurelia. I procured one (a male) close to the Abbey on 8th 
April, 1886 — the earliest date for forty-three years, Harley having observed it, 
curiously enough, in the Abbey Grounds, one day earlier in 1843. If Mr. Storer’s 
date (22nd Sept.) is correct for the occurrence of M. melanope, then it overlaps 
Kay’s Wagtail, for the latter species usually stays with us well into September, 
my latest date being 27th Sept. (1887), when I saw several in the meadows 
at Kibworth. 
According to Harley, it builds on the ground among grass, young corn, and 
tall plants, generally at some distance from the hedgerow, copse, belt of planta- 
tion, and thick wood. He frequently met with the nest on fallow lands, lodged 
beneath the covert of a lump of clay or soil left by the ploughshare, and composed 
of dry bents, fibrous roots, and small twigs, inwrought with green moss, and lined 
with hair ; but he did not say how exceedingly difficult it is to find the nest, 
and, although the bird is abundant in the meadows about Aylestone, and 
undoubtedly nests there every season, it was not found until 1886, v/hen Wilson, 
haymaking in a field just ofi" the road at Aylestone, on 2nd July, discovered 
a nest with six eggs, which I saw in situ, and secured for the iMuseum. The 
nest, which was built on the ground on the edge of a cart track, was formed 
of grass-bents and lined with hair, as described by Harley, and contained six 
^SS^! M of a uniform drab-brown, suffused with a darker shade toward 
the large end. 
In Kutland. — A summer migrant, but neither Lord Gainsbo dr nor 
Mr. Horn considers it so common as in Leicestershire, and I have, u.u.orefore, 
no note of its nesting. 
MEADOW-PIPIT. Anthus pratensis (Linnaeus). 
“ Moss-cheeper,” “ Tit- Lark,” “ Titling.” 
Kesident and common, probably double-brooded. 
Harley frequently met with the nest in ditch-banks, and in depressions 
in the open field, and wrote : — “ The nest is composed very neatly of stems 
of plants and dry grass, and lined with fine straw and hair. It is rather bulky.” 
