482 



PERCHING BIRDS 



The cock is a handsome bird, with the upper-parts mostly black, 

 although the forehead is white, as is a conspicuous patch on the wing 

 formed by the greater wing-covcrts and secondary quills, while there 

 is a mottled band of grey and white across the lower part of the back, 

 and the outer tail-feathers show more or less white, the under-parts 

 being wholly white. In the hen, on the other hand, there is no white on 

 the forehead, and the colour of the upper-parts is olive-brown, excepting 

 the tips of the greater wing-coverts and narrow outer margins to the 

 secondary quills, which are white ; the under-parts being huffish, shad- 

 ing into white on the abdomen. Young birds are mottled on the back 

 as in the spotted flycatcher, but the cocks show almost as much white 



on the wings as the adults ; in 

 both sexes the under-parts arc 

 streaked with dusky loop-shaped 

 marks. 



Arriving from its African 

 winter-haunts in April, the pied 

 flycatcher spreads over Europe 

 to a line about as far north as 

 latitude 69 in Scandinavia, but 

 gradually declining to 60' in the 

 Urals, while eastwards it extends 

 into Asia about as far as the valley 

 of the Obi. The breeding-range 

 includes, however. North Africa ; 

 and this being so, it is decidedly 

 remarkable that in Great Britain 

 it should nest chiefly in the midland and northern counties of England 

 and Wales, rather than in the south, where it is mainly known on 

 migration. In Scotland, on the other hand, it is a rare bird, although 

 it is known to have nested in Inverness-shire and Dumfriesshire, while 

 it has been seen in other northern counties, and has even been known 

 to visit the Orkneys. To Ireland it is merely an accidental visitor 

 on the coasts during migration, the first specimen having been taken in 

 1875, between which date and the end of the nineteenth century only 

 half-a-dozen other examples were recorded, these being taken on island 

 lighthouses during the autumn-migration. 



The distribution of the pied flycatcher is somewhat peculiar, for 

 wherever it is rejiorted to have bred occasionally in the southern 

 counties and midlands, it apparently chiefly affects elevated and 

 deeply wooded valleys where old timber abounds, although it is by 



I'll.U I'l.Y CATCH ICK (MALK 



