S A N D - M À R T I N .
noticed numbers of these birds roaring their young in the hanks of a small island in the river Lyon, in the
northwest of Perthshire. The following year I was surprised to find their accustomed quarters eulirely
doerted ; though I searched the island on two or three occasions, I never detected a single bird. Karly in
June, however, we wore visited by a terrible downpour of rain, which caused a heavy spate all over the district,
Swollen by the storm, the hill-burns rushed down like mountain-torrents into the river, carrying before the
flood a floating mass of debris that swept the shores and destroyed the whole of the crops in its course Cattle,
in two or three instances, were overtaken and drowned; and I well remember landing, by a east of the phantom
minnow, the carcass of a line ram, which was coming down the river with the first of the spate. The island on
which the Martina bred was entirely covered to a depth of three or four feet, the very banks being in some
parts torn away by the force of the current and the stumps and roots bulled against them. Though 1
occasionally noticed a few of the birds in the glen during the summer, I was unable to discover where they
had found fresh quarters. A few returned the nest spring to their old haunts; hut since that date I have been
absent from the locality, and 1 am ignorant whether it is still a resort of this interesting and useful species.
P I E D W A G T A I L.
MOTACILLA YARRELLI.
THE Pied Wagtail is well known in most parts of the British Islands, more plentiful perhaps in the south, hut
certainly a summer visitor, if not a resident, in the north. I occasionally remarked several pairs along the
banks of the Ness as early in the year as the beginning of April; a few of these probably pass the winter iu the
district. They may be met with on the stony shores of the river where it flows through the town of Inverness,
as well as along the various burns and streams in the neighbourhood. Scattered pairs are also lo be observed
during the winter on the east coast of Ross-shire.
Though it is a well-known fact that our native birds receive large additions to llicir numbers early in
the spring, I have b a n unable to learn from personal observation at what date our summer visitors take
their departure for the continent. The lirst and by far the largest arrivals may he looked for on the south
coast soon after the beginning of March, straggling parties continue to cross during the whole of the month ;
and occasionally a few make their appearance as late as April, On still mornings they may be observed
binding by hundreds. They seldom show the slightest signs of fatigue Or exhaustion when the passage of
the Channel is accomplished. After alighting for a lime at some brackish pool in the vicinity of the shore or
on newly ploughed laud, they invariably continue their journey direct to the quarters they intend to take up
fur the summer. Although hundreds may have boon observed within a mile or two of the coast during the
early morning, it is seldom that more than a pair or two will lie met with after two o'clock in the day, the
whole of the birds of passage having made their way inland. Should the weather set in cold and stormy, few,
if any, will make their appearance ; but with a change of temperature their accustomed haunts will again he
alive with fresh arrivals.
During the summer mouths these Wagtails may be found scattered over the country, a pair IT two here
and there wherever suitable localities are procurable. H lulc ei - iged in their nesting-operations they seldom
stray far from the neighbourhood of the farm-buildings, quarries, chalk-pita, or other situations that olfer them
a home. A low-lying patch of marsh-land, the batiks of a horse-poud, a gutter, or a uiountuiu-streani are
usually the rendezvous where the largest imvliugs may be noticed; and to such spots the young make their
way on leaving the nest. As autumn draws on they gather in docks and betake themselves to the river-side,
the salt-water mudbanks, or Hooded meadows, collecting towards evening iu large parties often at a
considerable distance from their usual haunts.
Theso birds may eouunouly be seen roosting in company with other species. I repeatedly disturbed
a parly that had taken up their quarters for the night with a number of Swallows in a reed-lied in the
east of Norfolk during the months of July and August I s ^ l . The Wagtails appeared, while I observed
them, either running on the water-plants or perched on the dead and floating roots of the reeds. I also
remarked an assemblage of from twenty to thirty resorting with Kecd-Buulings to a patch of rushes in the
mlirihtl between Bhmehiai and Weeding, during the first week in March lbT'J. By ti l'.u. large numbers of