266 
Mr. W. L. Sclater on Birds collected 
seen where the grass is more or less thick and in the low- 
country where the bush is more open. In general habits it 
resembles A. pyrrhonotns and A. nicholsoni. 
The soft parts are:—Irides hazel; bill, upper mandible 
horn-brown, lower yellowish horn-coloured; legs and toes 
palish brown, in some specimens pale amber-coloured.] 
147. Motacilla vidua. 
M. Illovo, Nov. (1) ; Tv. Klein Letaba, July, Sept. (3) ; 
P. Tete, Sept. (2). 
I quite agree with Mr. Grant’s remarks about the winter 
plumage of this Wagtail. These birds have the black flanks 
characteristic of M. vaillanti ( = M. nigricotis Shelley). 
[In the small series of this Wagtail collected there are 
birds taken in the winter and summer seasons with entirely 
black heads and backs. This caused me to carefully overhaul 
the very fine series in the British Museum, and I find that 
there is no evidence to shew that this species assumes a winter 
plumage with an ashy-brown back. But there is every 
evidence to shew that the fully adult birds moult once a 
year, and that this takes place in the autumn, the black 
upper parts being therefore retained throughout both the 
winter and summer seasons. Also that young birds moult 
from the first plumage into an ashy-brown-back stage ; the 
adult feathering apparently being assumed in the second 
year. 
This Wagtail was only observed on the Tugela River at 
Bond’s Drift, Natal, the low country of the North-Eastern 
Transvaal, and in the Tete district of the Portuguese country. 
It is partial to the land-locked mouths of rivers near the 
coast and the broad sandy rivers inland, like the Klein 
Letaba, the Mazoe and the Zambesi. Usually observed in 
pairs, sometimes in threes, in appearance and habits it 
greatly resembles the European Pied Wagtail [M. lugubris). 
The call is the Wagtail “ Chiswick,” and the flight is low, 
undulating, and graceful. 
The soft parts are:—Irides dark brown ; bill, legs and 
toes black.] 
