Tlie call-note of this bird is more shrill than that of the
other Wagtails, and consists of two notes repeated in succession,
the second of which, in the musical scale, is one whole
tone lower than the first. This species is numerous, and
generally diffused during summer from the southern coast of
England as far north as Durham and Northumberland;
where, according to Mr. Selby, they collect in small flocks
after the breeding-season, and move southwards towards the
end of August. Montagu observed flocks of these birds in
Devonshire in the autumn of 1802, 3, 4, and 5, and every
succeeding year they were observed sooner or later in the
southern promontories of Devon. According to Dr. Edward
Moore, similar assemblages of these birds take place every
year at the present time ; and Mr. Blyth mentions having
“ noticed a small flock of them, early one morning in September,
upon the sands in the isle of Jersey, which had apparently
not long alighted from a journey across the Channel,
and had probably taken their departure from some part of the
West of England.”
The geographical range of this species, as far as at present
known, is very limited ; it appears to be a rare summer
visiter even to Ireland, according to Mr. Thompson; and
M. Temminck states that he has certainly never seen it on
the continent of Europe in any locality between the Baltic
and the Mediterranean.
M. Temminck, in the Supplement to his Manual, has
proposed the name of Jlaveola for this species; but he was
not aware at that time of Mr. Gould’s intention to name this
bird after R a y ; and I do not anticipate any objection to
identify this bird, which is almost exclusively British, with
the name of the British naturalist who first described it.
I am indebted to my friend Mr. Henry Doubleday of
Epping, for the finest specimen of this bird I ever saw, an
adult male in brilliant summer plumage. The beak is black ;
the irides hazel; the top of the head, the lore, ear-coverts,
nape of the neck, scapulars, and back, very pale olive, rather
darkest on the back ; over the eye and ear-coverts a streak
of brilliant gamboge yellow; wing-coverts and quill-feathers
dusky brown, the former tipped, the tertials edged and
tipped, with yellowish white; upper tail-coverts olive; the two
outer tail-feathers on each side white, with a streak of black
on the inner web, all the others brownish black ; the chin,
throat, breast, and all the under surface of the body a bright,
rich gamboge yellow ; legs, toes, and claws, black.
The whole length of the bird six inches and a half. From
the carpal joint to the end of the wing three inches and one
eighth: the first three quill-feathers very nearly equal in
length, but the first rather the longest.
The plumage of the female at the same season of the year
is much less rich in colour, the back being tinged with darker
brown, and the under surface of the body of a less brilliant yellow.
Young birds of the year, and the parent birds after the
moult which immediately succeeds the breeding-season, resemble
each other considerably; the olivaceous band observed
in some across the breast, is, I believe, a sign of youth, and
probably remains till the first spring change, when the birds
are nearly twelve months old.
Having frequently examined specimens of our Wagtails
in the spring of the year, when they were assuming
either the change of colour, or the additional brilliancy of
tint, peculiar to the breeding-season, without finding any
new feathers in progress, I am induced to consider the vernal
change in these birds as so many instances of alteration effected
in the colour of the old feathers, and not a change of
the feathers themselves.