surprising, to the entire neglect of its own young, whicli seldom if ever live more than three days after they 
are hatched, if the usurper be among the family. 
A nest, taken from a hole in a pollard willow near the lock at Maidenhead, in Berkshire, on the 24th of 
April 1859, was cupshaped, somewhat dense, and formed of dried grasses, fine roots, and shreds of the common 
barkless bass matting, warmly lined with short cows’ hair and a little wool. The eggs were four in number; 
their ground-colour light olive grey, minutely freckled all over with purplish brown, but especially at the 
larger end. The construction of this nest was commenced in the first week of April, and the first egg was 
laid about the 15th. Another, taken in May 1860, from a beam under the roof of a boat-house at Formosa, 
near Maidenhead, contained four eggs of the Pied Wagtail, and one of a Cuckoo. This nest was rendered 
singular in appearance by a quantity of scarlet and blue wools, with which it was decorated, and from there 
being among the materials of which it was composed a shred of purple silk, apparently a fragment from 
a lady’s dress. 
During the pairing-season the male performs a number of grotesque and animated motions, and approaches 
the female with ruffled feathers and outspread wings and tail. 
Although the Pied Wagtail is an inhabitant of our island during the whole of the year, I have not failed 
to notice that it is much more numerous in certain localities at one season than at another, and that, if it be 
not strictly migratory, it certainly, like other birds, affects a change of situation. Any one who may visit the 
banks of the Thames during the month of September will find both old and young congregated in thousands, 
spreading over the margins of the river and roosting on the aits at night. I have myself seen them there 
at that season in swarms like the Sand-Martin ; and that some more or less extensive migration then takes 
place I am certain, for a short time afterwards their numbers are greatly diminished. Where they go to, no 
one can say ; all we know is that the greater number of them disappear, and that but few remain during 
the winter. At the period alluded to, the old birds have thrown off the black colouring of the throat (the 
characteristic of summer) and assumed the white one of winter ; the early-spring broods have the throat 
suffused with yellow, and their backs mottled black and grey ; and the later ones are less gaily attired, having 
the upper surface brown, and the under one grey, with only a trace of the black pectoral band. The sexes 
are very similar at all seasons, except that the colour of the female is less intense, her back not so black as that 
of the male, and in some instances grey, but never of so light a hue as in M. alba. 
The Plate represents a male and a female, of the natural size, in their full summer dress, and a young 
bird in the first autumn of its existence, when the face and throat are usually suffused with yellow. 
DS? 
