52 



The nest is built in similar situations to that of the Blackcapt Fauvet, but is 

 less frequently placed in a fork ; sometimes it occurs in herbage close to the 

 ground, and not unfrequently in tall hawthorn or other bushes, at six, eight, or 

 even ten feet from the surface, but four or five is more the usual average. In 

 construction it somewhat resembles that of the Whitethroated species, but is 

 smaller, and more compact, and is invariably more or less lined with small rootlets, 

 which is its distinguishing character. The eggs, four or five in number, are 

 smaller than those of its British congeners, greenish white, blotched and spotted — 

 chiefly at the large end, where the markings often form a zone — with brown and 

 dusky ash-colour, the prevalent tints throughout the genus. They are compara- 

 tively little liable to variation, and have the spots always larger, and the ground 

 colour much clearer, than in those of the Whitethroated Fauvet. The specimens 

 figured in the plate represent, very nearly, the extremes of variation. This 

 species is also exceedingly shy of having any liberties taken with its cradle, which 

 it will forsake on a very trifling occasion. 



The Whitebreasted Fauvet rears at least two, and, I suspect, often three, 

 broods in a season, as I know to be the case with the Whitethroat. The young 



their white under parts shewing very conspicuously. So far as I have observed, none of 

 the Fauvets have any idea of following an insect upon the wing, however expert they may 

 be at capturing them the moment they come within their reach. I have many times, in a 

 room, seen the Whitebreast eagerly watch the motions of flying insects, and snap at them 

 with almost unerring aim (though sometimes two or three times in quick succession) the 

 instant they ventured within the reach of its bill ; but I never knew one to attempt to 

 follow them into the air, as is a common habit with the Redstart and Pettychaps genera 

 ( Phanicura, and Sylvia as now limited). I observe, however, that Mr. Neville Wood, in 

 his recently published work on British Song Birds, describes a habit of the Garden Fauvet 

 (F. hortensis) which, he says, '' does not appear to have been noticed by any preceding na- 

 turalist. And that is, its darting into the air to catch insects, in the same manner as the 

 Flycatchers (Muscicapa), often taking its stand on a dahlia stake, watching for its prey, 

 darting aloft with inconceivable rapidity, with its bill upwards, catching the fiy with a loud 

 snap of the bill, and immediately returning to its station, again and again to renew the 

 same process, with similar success. Often as I have observed this interesting manoeuvre, 

 especially last summer, I do not remember a single instance in which it missed its prey." 

 To these observations are annexed one or two remarks, in order to prove that he had not 

 confused the Garden Fauvet with the Grey Flycatcher, a species with which, he assures 

 us, he is equally familiar. For my own part, though I would by no means be understood 

 to cast a doubt upon the accuracy of Mr. Wood's observations, still I cannot but observe 

 that the habit he here mentions is at variance with the whole tenor of what I have 

 hitherto noticed concerning the mode of taking insect-prey in this genus ; all the members 

 of which (I mean the British species) I have repeatedly seen to act precisely in the man- 

 ner I have just detailed of F. garrula. I may add, also, that the individuals in which I 

 have noticed this were not dull-spirited, broken-plumaged, victims of mal-treatment, but 

 clean and perfect, lively and active, specimens, which the most scrutinizing eye could not 

 have distinguished from wild birds. 



