MOTACILLA PERSONATA, Gould.
Masked Wagtail.

Motacilla Dukhunensis, Blyth, on the Family Motacillide, p. 3.

 

Tue drawing on the accompanying Plate represents a very distinct species of Wagtail, w

hose native country
I believe to be Bengal and the central and northern parts of Hindostan ; its range

may also extend to Ceylon,
but of this I have no positive evidence. I have never seen it from the Deccan or the western parts of the
Indian peninsula, its place there being apparently supplied by the Motacilla Maderaspatana and M. Dukhunensis.

In its full summer dress the MWotacilla personata has the throat, chest, ear-coverts, sides and back of
the neck jet-black, while the back is clear ash-grey, and both the greater and lesser wing-coverts are so
broadly margined with white as to give that part of the wing the appearance of being wholly of that hue ;
as winter approaches the black of the throat becomes speckled with white, and when the change has been
completed, a crescentic mark of black across the chest almost alone remains.

In its summer dress it is at once distinguished from its congeners by the black colouring of the sides of
the neck, and by the forehead and space surrounding the eye being alone white, whence the specific name of
personata, or masked.

I have but little doubt of this being the bird which Mr. Blyth, in his paper on the Jotaciiide, has con-
sidered to be identical with the JZ, Dukhunensis of Sykes, inasmuch as he describes it to have “the neck
black all round ;” and it may be the bird which Mr. Jerdon states “is very common over most of the
table-land [of the Indian peninsula] during the cold weather only, migrating to the north at the com-
mencement of the hot season. It frequents rivers, open fields, gardens, villages, stable-yards, &c., and
occasionally even euters houses, feeding on a great variety of insects.”

In summer the forehead and a space surrounding each eye is pure white; the chin, throat, breast, sides of
the neck, occiput and back of the neck black; all the upper surface and scapularies grey, deepening into
black on the apical portion of the upper tail-coverts ; wings dark brown, the coverts and secondaries broadly
margined with white, and the primaries very uarrowly edged with white; two outer tail-feathers on each
side white, margined on the basal portion of their inner webs with black ; the remainder black, with the
exception of the margins of the external webs of two centre ones, which in iresbi-miguiied feathers are white ;
under surface white, washed with grey on the flanks ; irides brown; bill and feet blackish brown. .

As winter approaches the black of the throat becomes mottled ee white, and when the change is perfected,
a crescentic mark of black across the chest probably alone remains. | |

The accompanying Plate gives a correct representation of both these states; the upper figure that of the
full summer dress, the lower the bird undergoing the change.

The figures are of the size of life.

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