Wetter; Prep.

YAIR IR IEILILI .

MO TACILILA

Gould & HC. Richter, del et: lithe,

MOTACILLA YARRELLI, Gouia.
Pied Wagtail.

Motacilla Yarrelh, Gould, Birds of Europe, vol. ii. List of plates, p. ii, note.

 

] appREHEND that no one with a spark of love for our indigenous birds can fail to admire the Pied Wag-
tail as it trips over the lawn, or runs before him during his rambles by the river-side. Whether engaged
in pursuit of insects, or in performing its dipping flight from one place to another, its presence gives
life to the landscape, and adds much to the attractions of the scene. It is a bird which America
may well envy us, and which Australia would gladly give much in exchange to possess; for in neither
of those countries does it or any member of its genus occur. It is not a little singular that a bird so
common and so universally dispersed over the British Islands should have remained without a specific
appellation until 1837, when I proposed for it that of Yarredi, and that all English ornithologists should
have failed to perceive that it is distinct from the Motacilla alba of Linnewus. Neither is it less remark-
able that a mere strait of only some thirty miles across should form a boundary over which the two
species rarely pass. To say that neither of them ever visits the other’s territory would be to state
what is untrue; for such an occurrence does occasionally take place; but these are merely excep-
tions to the rule, and, moreover, are so rare that a person might live at Dover from childhood to old
age without seeing a JM. alba, or at Calais without once meeting with MZ. Yarrelli. The only part of
the world out of our own islands whence I have received the Pied Wagtail is Heligoland; and I now
question if I had not myself been deceived when I stated, in my paper on the species of the genus Mota-
cilla, published in the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ for 1837, that I had seen it from Norway and
Sweden. Why the habitats of some birds should be restricted, and others extensive, is beyond our
comprehension. One would naturally suppose that if any Wagtail migrated in summer to Norway,
Sweden, and Iceland, it would be the one common in Britain; instead of which it is the more southern
M. alba that extends its summer journey to these almost Arctic countries. Over Britain the JZ Yarrell
is so abundantly dispersed, that it matters not whether we visit the Land’s End, in Cornwall, Cape Wrath,
in Scotland, or the Orkney Islands; everywhere this pretty pied bird will be met with; in the vale and
the higher lands, wherever man with his flocks are found and husbandry is carried on, the certain accom-
paniment is the Pied Wagtail. The shepherd knows the bird as well as his sheep, for they are almost
inseparable ; the herd-boy finds it the daily companion of his charge; and the maid when she goes to
the mead, sees it jump up and dash about for insects around the cow she is milking; and the farm-labourer
has it ever before him, both in winter and summer the stack-yard and the midden being among its favourite
places of resort. :

The Dishwasher, as the Pied Wagtail is familiarly called in some parts of the country, is one of the most
peaceful of our little birds; for it interferes with none; and if the coarse, hopping sparrow attempts to tilt
with it, it readily trips before him with the most light-footed agility, or darts away with amazing quick-
ness. On the water’s edge it readily evades this or any other insessorial bird, by running breast high
into the stream, and leaping on a floating leaf, a stone, or any water-plant or projecting object that may
present itself therein ; along the roof of a house it passes with equal nimbleness, so that here again the
pugnacious Fringilline is once more nonplused. Its wings being long and ample, its flight is vigorous,
but peculiar; and it dips away over the river, or from one part of the mead to another, with the utmost
rapidity, and, on settling, throws up its tail and keeps it in constant motion; its legs and toes are so
delicately formed as to render its progress over the ground as facile as possible; in like manner its
cylindrical bill is as admirably adapted for taking minute insects as its full black eye is for discovering during
the period of summer the gnats, aphides, and other tiny kinds which are then to be found among the
various grasses, while at other seasons it as readily secures the small mollusks and the host of soft insects
upon which it then subsists.

In addition to its other attractions, the Pied Wagtail sings, durmg the early part of spring, a short but
sprightly and pretty song, which may occasionally be also heard in June, when the female is sitting on her second
laying of eggs. ‘The situation of the nest is very variable ; its most frequent sites are the hole ina wall, ona
beam in an outhouse, the head of a pollard willow, under tbe eaves ofa hay-rick, &c. Wherever it may be, it is
one of those most frequently selected for the place of deposit of the egg of the parasitic Cuckoo; but how
this is effected is still a mystery, though Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that the old Cuckoo has been seen
to carry its egg in its bill, and drop it into the nest. However this may be, a more sedulous fosterparent
than the Pied Wagtail could not be found ; for it defends its charge with a courage and pertinacity truly