THE BIRDS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 
181 
of the old journals which I kept in my school-boy days that I 
used to find them in holes in pollard willows. I have had num¬ 
bers of eggs and find them vary both in size and colour. 
The one or two individuals to oe seen in the winter lose the 
black colouring on the chin and part of that on the throat, and 
have it replaced with white, but a black collar, as it were, remains 
round the neck. 
The continental white wagtail, Motacilla alba , is only an oc¬ 
casional visitor and I have never found its nest When I have 
seen it it has been in either March or September. The most 
recent of my records respecting it are, Horningsea, March 24, 
1893 ; Ely, March 29, 1893 ; Chesterton, March 23, 1894. 
The grey wagtail, Motacilla melanope , Pall., is one of our winter 
birds and leaves the county in the spring for the districts where 
it breeds. 
The blue headed wagtail, Motacilla flava , is occasionally to be 
observed in the more northerly part of the county, but is very 
rare indeed near Cambridge. It is a bird which loves to be near 
the sea coast and, if it breeds anywhere in Cambridgeshire, it 
would be the neighbourhood of Wisbech. 
The beautiful, canary-like, yellow wagtail, Motacilla rati, Bon., 
is common on the banks of the Cam, Ouse, and Nen, and in the 
adjacent fields, where it makes its loosely constructed nest of dry 
grass, fibrous roots, moss, and wool and lined with hair. I have 
not seen any particular variation in the colouring of the yellowish 
freckled eggs excepting that sometimes there is a black waved 
line at the large end which in other specimens is absent, and 
some have the ground colour inclined to pinkish grey. There is 
not much variation, either, in the plumage of the birds, excepting 
that the very few, which I have seen here in the winter, are not 
nearly of such a bright yellow as the summer birds, but have 
some of the feathers nearly white. The yellow wagtails nearly 
all leave us in September, but I saw one at Chesterford, on Feb¬ 
ruary 8th, of the present year. The migrants return about the 
27th of March as a rule. 
Before leaving the wagtails I cannot refrain from giving ex¬ 
pression to my regret that the nomenclature of the Motacillidce is 
in such a chaotic state. 
To be continued. 
By M. Burr. 
Some people may have heard of Mt. Revard, but for the bene¬ 
fit of those that have not, I will explain that it is a mountain near 
Aix-les-bains in that most beautiful department of France, viz. 
