The specimens which have been obtained and recorded as British, and which amount to a considerable number, have been for the most part met with on the coasts of the eastern, southern, and south-western counties of England, and almost invariably in the spring of the year. There can be no doubt that it breeds here; indeed, the fact of its having done so in two or three instances has been already recorded. In the “Zoologist” for 1870 (p. 2343), Mr. J. Watson of Gateshead, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, writes:—“I have seen a good many notices in the ‘Zoologist’ of the occurrence of the Grey-headed Wagtail: it may interest you to hear of its breeding in this neighbourhood. Two nests were found by a friend of mine last year on some swampy ground near here. This year on the 13th of June I found another; and on the 8th of July my friend shot two young birds beginning to assume their mature plumage: one of these birds is in the possession of and was identified by Mr. John Hancock of Newcastle.” But although the greater number of recorded British specimens have been obtained in the South of England, a few have been noticed from time to time in Scotland, and Dr. Saxby has on several occasions seen the species even as far north as Shetland. Mr. Blake Knox thinks that it occurs in Ireland, but that it is probably much overlooked, or perhaps confounded with the last-mentioned species. As it is common in summer in most of the countries of Western Europe, one would naturally expect to meet with it more frequently at the same season in Great Britain; and the increasing attention which is being paid to ornithology, and especially to the birds of particular districts, will no doubt result in the establishment of this species in the list of British birds as an annual summer migrant. [Illustration: Decorative glyph] [Illustration: MEADOW PIPIT] THE MEADOW PIPIT. (_Anthus pratensis._) Premising that attention is not confined to species which are British, it is generally admitted by ornithologists that the Pipits are a difficult group to identify. They are subject to such variation in size and colour that it has often happened that one and the same species has been described four or five times as new, under as many new names. Gradually, however, as the researches of naturalists become extended, and the transport of specimens from various quarters of the globe is facilitated, the difficulty wears off, and we are enabled to define with sufficient accuracy the limits of each species and the variations of plumage within those limits.