374 
ITS MOVEMENTS. 
remain all summer and breed. One was shot May 
28th, 1839, by Pincombe, and I saw one myself 
subsequently on the 25th, apparently engaged in 
breeding. In 1831 I saw one frequenting a pond 
near Tavistock on the second of September; this 
may have been an unusually early arrival, or one 
of a pair that had stayed through the season. Their 
chief resorts are rivers and streams, but some repair 
to the sea-coast, and fare with the Pied Wagtail. 
In hard weather they seem all to frequent the roads, 
and seek support from the droppings of cattle, frost 
seeming to cause a general retirement of the insects 
on which they feed, or sealing down the soil and 
stones beneath which they harbour. I believe that 
if any precise dates for their arrival and departure 
could be ventured on, they would be September 15th 
and April 8th ; yet in 1835 I saw a flock arrive at 
a small village on the sea-coast on August 13th. In 
their retreat also in the spring preceding, I observed 
an unusual tardiness, and they disappeared gradu¬ 
ally . No phenomena that we know of, can enlighten 
us respecting these irregularities, any more than 
concerning the cause of their migrations : we see 
that the Pied Wagtail haunts the same situations 
feeds similarly, and is content to remain with us the 
year through; but some impulse carries the Grey sort 
hundreds of miles northward to rear its young. It 
is now clearly made out, that in the spring our 
flocks retire to the northern counties, it being there 
a stationary bird also ; but, independently of Selby’s 
authority for this, a paper which I possess, written 
by a naturalist living at Kendal, tallies so well in 
its account of the’transits of this bird there, with its 
movements in this county, as to have led me to 
suspect the nature of their retreat before I read 
Selby’s statement. This gentleman, Mr. Gough, 
thus writes:—“ The Grey Wagtail is a partial mi¬ 
grator ; a few remain about the town through the 
