MOTACILLA YARRELLI, Gould, 
Pied Wag-tail. 
Motacilla YarrelU, Gould, Birds of Europe, vol. ii. List of plates, p. ii, note. 
I APPREHEND that 110 0116 witli a spark of love for our indigenous birds Ccin fail to admire the Pied Wag- 
tail as it trips over the lawn, or runs before him during his rambles by the river-side. Whether engaged 
in pursuit of insects, or in performing its dipping flight from one place to another, its presence gives 
life to the landscape, and adds much to the attractions of the scene. It is a bird which America 
may well envy us, and which Australia would gladly give much in exchange to possess ; for in neither 
of those countries does it or any member of its genus occur. It is not a little singular that a bird so 
common and so universally dispersed over the British Islands should have remained without a specific 
appellation until 1837, when I proposed for it that of YarrelU, and that all English ornithologists should 
have failed to perceive that it is distinct from the Motacilla alba of Linnaeus. Neither is it less remark- 
able that a mere strait of only some thirty miles across should form a boundary over which the tAvo 
species rarely pass. To say that neither of them ever visits the other’s territory would be to state 
what is untrue ; for such an occurrence does occasionally take place ; but these are merely excep- 
tions to the rule, and, moreover, are so rare that a person might live at Dover from childhood to old 
age without seeing a M. alba, or at Calais without once meeting with M. YarrelU. The only part of 
the world out of our own islands whence I have received the Pied Wagtail is Heligoland; and I now 
question if I had not myself been deceived Avhen I stated, in my paper on the species of the genus Mota- 
cilla, published in the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ for 1837, that I had seen it from Norway and 
Sweden. Why the habitats of some birds should be restricted, and others extensive, is beyond our 
comprehension. One would naturally suppose that if any Wagtail migrated in summer to Norway, 
Sweden, and Iceland, it would be the one common in Britain ; instead of which it is the more southern 
M. alba that extends its summer journey to these almost Arctic countries. Over Britain the M. YarrelU 
is so abundantly dispersed, that it matters not Avhether Ave visit the Land’s End, in Cornwall, Cape Wrath, 
in Scotland, or the Orkney Islands ; everywhere this pretty pied bird will be met with ; in the vale and 
the higher lands, wherever man Avith his flocks are found and husbandry is carried on, the certain accom- 
paniment is the Pied M^agtail. The shepherd knows the bird as well as his sheep, for they are almost 
inseparable ; the herd-boy finds it the daily companion of his charge ; and the maid, when she goes to 
the mead, sees it jump up and dash about for insects around the cow she is milking; and the farm-labourer 
has it ever before him, both in winter and summer the stack-vard and the midden beino- amoni^ its favourite 
places of resort. 
The Dishwasher, as the Pied Wagtail is famllWrly called in some parts of the country, is one of the most 
peaceful of our little birds ; for it interferes with none ; and if the coarse, hopping sparrow attempts to tilt 
with it, it readily trips before him with the most light-footed agility, or darts away with amazing quick- 
ness. On the water’s edge it readily ev'^ades this or any other insessorial bird, by running breast high 
into the stream, and leaping on a floating leaf, a stone, or any water-plant or projecting object that may 
present itself therein ; along the roof of a house it passes with equal nimbleness, so that here again the 
pugnacious Fringilline is once more nonplused. Its wings being long and ample, its flight is vigorous, 
but peculiar ; and it dips away over the river, or from one part of the mead to another, with the utmost 
rapidity, and, on settling, throws up its tail and keeps it in constant motion ; its legs and toes are so 
delicately formed as to render its progress over the ground as facile as possible ; in like manner its 
cylindrical bill is as admirably adapted for taking minute insects as its full black eye is for discovering during 
the period of summer the gnats, aphides, and other tiny kinds which are then to be found among the 
various grasses, while at other seasons it as readily secures the small mollusks and the host of soft insects 
upon which it then subsists. 
In addition to its other attractions, the Pied Wagtail sings, during the early part of spring, a short but 
sprightly and pretty song, which may occasionally be also heard in June, when the female is sitting on her second 
laying of eggs. The situation of the nest is very variable ; its most frequent sites are the hole in a wall, on a 
beam in an outhouse, the head of a pollard willow, under the eaves of a hay-rick, &c. Wherever it may be, it is 
one of those most frequently selected for the place of deposit of the egg of the parasitic Cuckoo ; but how 
this is effected is still a mystery, though Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that the old Cuckoo has been seen 
to carry its egg in its bill, and drop it into the nest. However this may be, a more sedulous fosterparent 
than the Pied Wagtail could not he found ; for it defends its charge AA'ith a courage and pertinacity truly 
