THE WAGTAILS. 
97 
HaMti. — These are, as might be expected, very similar to 
those of M. lugubris, and, like that species, the White Wagtail 
is a very lively and active little bird, pursuing insects with the 
same elastic and rapid movements. 
Nest. — Similar to that of the Pied Wagtail, with which 
species it certainly interbreeds on certain occasions. In the 
western corridor at the British Museum (N.H.) can be seen a 
Wagtail’s nest sent by Lord Walsingham, and procured by his 
keeper in Norfolk. The male bird is undoubtedly a White 
Wagtail, while the female is a Pied Wagtail, and a second 
instance of such interbreeding has been noticed by Dr. Giin- 
ther in Suffolk. 
Eggs. — Five to six. Generally indistinguishable from those 
of M. lugubris, but in the Seebohm collection in the British 
Museum are some very curious variations in markings. The 
ground colour is decidedly more bluish-white than in eggs 
of M. lugubris, and the same styles of eggs with the stone-grey 
ground and the fine specklings, which are seen in the latter 
species, are also frequent in a series of eggs of M. alba. 
There is, however, in the latter species an occasional tendency 
to produce a brownish egg, wherein the ground-colour is dull 
white, almost entirely hidden by marblings and spots of light 
brown or reddish-brown, especially marked in a clutch taken 
by Mr. Seebohm in the Petchora Valley, and again distinct in 
another clutch from Valkensvaard in Holland, but in the latter 
case the markings are not so strongly exemplified. One egg in 
the British Museum, from Holland, is white with the large end 
black, an unusual variation in a Wagtail’s egg. Axis, o-8-o'9 
inch ; diarn., o - 6-o’65. 
THE GREY WAGTAIL. MOTACILLA MELANOPE. 
(Plate XIII.) 
Motacilla melanope , Pall. Reise. Russ. Reichs, iii., App., p. 
696 (1776); Dresser, B. Eur., iii., p. 251, pi. 128 (1875); 
B. O. U. List Br. B., p. 30 (1883 ) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. 
Brit. Mus., x., p. 497 (1885); Saunders, Man., p. 117 
(1889) ; Wyatt, Br. B., pi. 8, figs. 1, 2 (1894). 
Motacilla boarula , Macg., Br. B., ii., p. 235 (1839). 
