[Illustration]
Motacilla alba, LINNÆUS; La Lavandière, BUFFON; Die weisse
Bachstelze, BECHSTEIN.
This species, well known throughout the old world, is seven inches in
length, of which the tail measures three and a half. The beak, five
lines long, is black, and very pointed; the iris is dark; the shanks, an
inch in height, are slender, and black; the upper part of the head, as
far as the nape, is black, but the rest of the upper part of the body,
the sides of the breast, and lesser wing-coverts, are bluish ash grey;
the forehead, cheeks, and sides of the neck are white as snow; the
throat, as far as the middle of the breast, is black.
The female is without the white forehead and cheeks, the black top to
the head being somewhat smaller. Some females have been found with very
little of the black cap, and even without it, the head then being of the
same colour as the back.
The young ones, which are seen in large flocks with the yellow wagtail
around herds of cattle, are so different before the first moulting, that
they have been considered a distinct species, under the name of the grey
wagtail (_Motacilla cinerea_). In fact, the whole of the upper part of
the body is grey, more or less pale; the throat and belly dusky white;
the breast is generally crossed by a band, sometimes entire, sometimes
broken, of a grey or brownish colour, and the quill-feathers are whitish
on the outer edge.
It is not surprising to find varieties amongst birds so numerous. Some
are quite white, others variegated, or speckled with white.
HABITATION.--When wild it is found equally near houses, in the fields
and mountains, and in every place where insects and worms are in
plenty. It is in Germany a bird of passage, which assembles in autumn
on the tiles, like the swallow, to prepare for its departure in the
first fortnight of October[96]. It returns towards the end of
February or beginning of March, though the weather be not mild; it
may come thus early without danger, as it does not fear to approach
houses, on the walls of which it finds flies that the spring sun has
drawn from their retreat; and in the streams it also finds abundance
of aquatic insects.
In the house it may be kept in a cage, or allowed to range; but in
either case it is necessary to scatter plenty of sand about, as it is
a very dirty little bird.
FOOD.--When wild, it feeds on gnats, water-spiders, aquatic insects,
flies, and insects that fasten on cattle, round which it often roams.
It also follows the ploughman to feed on the insects turned up by the
plough.
In the house nothing tames it so soon as ants' eggs, meal-worms,
flies, and other insects. By degrees it acquires a taste for other
food. In the cage it must be fed in the same manner as the
nightingale.
BREEDING.--This species breeds two or three times in the course of the
season. Its nest, placed in a hole, in a crevice between stones, or
even under a tile, is carelessly formed of moss, small roots, hay, or
something of the kind, and lined with hair and wool. It lays five or
six eggs, of a bluish white, spotted with black. The young ones
brought up from the nest become so tame, that they will go and return
like a pigeon, build in the room, and seek for food for their little
ones in the fields.
DISEASES.--Though very subject to diarrhoea, this and the two
following species may be preserved in a room five or six years.
MODE OF TAKING.--If there is snow on the ground on their return in
March, it is only necessary to clear a place (below the window will
do), and scatter meal-worms amongst limed twigs, or place these on
stones or wood where the birds assemble, or even fasten a meal-worm
to a limed twig, loosely stuck in the earth, and you may soon catch a
wagtail.
ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--Its handsome plumage, its sprightliness, its
quick and elegant motions, please one as much as its pretty song,
which, without being striking, is varied, and continues the whole
year, except during moulting. I always keep a wagtail amongst my
birds, and when the blackcap, the blue-breast, the lark, and the
linnet sing, it seems to form a counter-tenor.