528 MUSCICAPA LUCTUOSA. 



lined with a little hair, and generally a few decayed leaves on 

 the outer side, but Entirely without moss. Their eggs vary in 

 number : we have found their nest with five, six, and now 

 and then with seven ; their colour a pale green ; and they so 

 greatly resemble the eggs of the redstart, that it is frequently 

 very difficult to distinguish them, unless contrasted together : 

 they are, however, far from being so elegantly made, of a 

 rounder form, and rather less, weighing from 23 to 30 grains. 

 The males, soon after their arrival, should the weather be at 

 all favourable, will frequently sit for a considerable time on 

 the decayed branch of a tree, constantly repeating their short, 

 little varied, although far from unpleasing song, every now 

 and then interrupted by the pursuit and capture of some pass- 

 ing insect. Their alarm note is not very unlike the word 

 chuch, which they commonly repeat two or three times when 

 approached, and which readily leads to their detection. The 

 manners and habits of the pied flycatcher have considerable 

 affinity to those of the redstart ; they arrive about the same 

 time, associate together, and often build in the same holes, for 

 which they will sometimes contend. On one occasion we found 

 a dead female redstart in the nest of a pied flycatcher contain- 

 ing two eggs ; and at another time, when both those species 

 had nests within a few inches of each other, upon the red- 

 starfs being removed, the female redstart took forcible posses- 

 sion of the flycatcher''s nest, incubated the eggs, and brought 

 up the young." 



It may seem somewhat strange that this species should not 

 have been met with in any part of Scotland. On the Continent 

 it extends northward as far as the middle parts of Germany, and 

 is abundant in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. 

 The nest is said to be loosely constructed of fibrous roots, grass, 

 dry leaves, and hair, the latter with some fine grass forming the 

 lining. The eggs, six or eight in number, are pale blue, about 

 eight and a half twelfths in length, rather broadly oval, their 

 greatest breadth being somewhat more than half an inch. 



Young. — The young, which are hatched in the beginning 

 of June, are when fledged similar to the female. 



