170 
MOTACILLIDiE. 
INSESSOEES. MOTACILLIDJE. 
DEN TIROS TRES. 
RAY’S WAGTAIL. 
YELLOW WAGTAIL. 
Motacilla Rayi. 
PLATE XLII. PIG. III. 
The Yellow Wagtail usually builds its nest upon 
tlie ground, in fields of peas, or green corn, or on a 
naked fallow. I have found it, too, upon a ledge of earth 
on the bank of a river, and in the hole of a wall by 
the side of water. The nest is composed of dry grasses, 
roots, bits of moss or wool, and is lined with the finer 
grasses and roots and a few hairs. Mr. Newton tells me 
that nests of this species vary much in their construc¬ 
tion ; that “ of two nests taken on the same day and 
within a few yards of each other, one is composed of 
green moss and grass, lined with rabbit’s down, the other 
entirely of grass, and lined with fine roots.” The eggs 
are commonly four or five in number, occasionally six; 
they are usually somewhat less than the eggs of the grey 
wagtail which they sometimes resemble ; they are more 
like those of the grey-headed yellow wagtail, and it would 
be very difficult to identify them if once mixed with eggs 
of the sedge-warbler which they closely resemble in 
colour, as well as in being usually marked with a black 
waved line across the larger end. 
