526 MUSCICAPA LUCTUOSA. 



ing the white patch on the forehead, and in having the upper 

 parts hair brown, the lower dull white. 



Length to end of tail 5^^^ inches; wing from flexure 3j^ ; 

 tail 2/^ ; bill along the ridge ji ; tarsus ^% ; middle toe ^^|, 

 its claw /^. 



Habits. — This species is in form and proportions nearly as 

 much a Sylvia as a Flycatcher, being more especially allied to 

 the Redstart and others of that group. It arrives from the 

 middle to the end of April, and appears to be more abundant 

 in Cumberland and Westmoreland than in the other counties. 

 Up to 1813, when the Supplement to Montagu's Dictionary 

 appeared, very little was known as to the habits of this bird, 

 all that is related by that excellent ornithologist being as fol- 

 lows. " As it rarely makes its appearance in the southern 

 parts of the island, it may be inferred to be a northern species, 

 and probably indigenous rather than merely a summer visitant. 

 But being a local species, which never has been plentiful, and 

 seems to be diminishing, this point has not been ascertained. 

 The Rev. Mr Dalton of Copgrove, in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire, had transmitted a pair shot in his neighbourhood, 

 in which there was no material distinction between the sexes, 

 except that the female was rather less bright in the black parts 

 of the plumage ; but subsequent observations do not agree with 

 this, for the female has been found to differ materially in colour. 

 A nest and eggs were taken in the beginning of May 1811, in 

 the same county, and transmitted by Mr Dalton. The nest 

 was taken from a hole in a tree ; it is composed of dry leaves 

 intermixed with broad pieces of the interior bark of some tree, 

 and a little hay, with a few long hairs, and three or four fea- 

 thers form the lining. The materials are so coarse, and des- 

 titute of wool or other substances capable of connecting the 

 parts, that it scarcely holds together, evidently bespeaking that 

 it had been taken from the situation described. The eggs are 

 five in number, of a very pale blue, about the size and colour of 

 those of the Redstart, but rather paler. The nest is very dif- 

 ferent from that of the Redstart, which is more compact, and 

 formed of moss, plentifully lined with hair and feathers ; where- 



