SWALLOW 483 



no means restricted to localities of this description. It is locally 

 common in some parts of Wales, Yorkshire, and Westmoreland, but 

 farther north becomes scarcer. In Scotland, for instance, it but 

 seldom breeds ; while in Ireland it does so still more rarely. 



With the same general habits as the spotted species, this fly- 

 catcher in England resorts to open country rather than gardens and 

 the vicinity of dwelling-houses. Like the former, when insect-food 

 fails it will eat worms and berries. Both kinds have a short and 

 feeble song, that of the spotted flycatcher being seldom heard, while 

 that of the present species is compared to the trill of the redstart. 

 From four to eight pale blue eggs, rather smaller and with thinner 

 shells than those of a hedge-sparrow, are laid in a nest mainly 

 composed of grass, leaves, and feathers, and generally placed in a hole 

 in a tree-stem, but occasionally in a chink of a rock or stone-wall. 



On account of the shortness of the first primary quill, which is 

 much inferior in length to the fifth, coupled with the slight 

 development of the bristles at the gape — generally only about half- 

 a-dozen in number — the red-breasted flycatcher {Uliisdcapa pixrvix) is 

 frequently associated with a small group of Himalayan species under 

 the name of Siphia parva. A summer-visitor to central and eastern 

 Europe, and wintering in India, this flycatcher was only recorded on 

 about a dozen occasions (twice in pairs) as a straggler to the British 

 Isles during the nineteenth century. Most of these visits were to the 

 southern and eastern coasts of England, but one, which may be 

 doubtful, was to Berwick-on-Tweed, while four occurred in Ireland. 

 Several specimens have been taken or seen since 1900. As in the 

 pied-flycatcher, the two sexes are unlike in colour ; the cock, in 

 addition to the above-mentioned structural features, may be recognised 

 by the bright chestnut of the chin, throat, and breast, followed by 

 white on the rest of the lower parts, tinged, however, with buff on the 

 sides. In the female, on the other hand, the whole of the under-parts 

 is dull white, tinged with tawny grey on the breast and flanks. Both 

 sexes are brownish above, tending to greyish in the cock, especially 

 on the face, which is mainly grey. 



Swallow '^'^^ proper serial position of the swallows and 



fHirundo rustiea) "^^''tins, constituting the family Hirundinidai, is a 



matter on which scarcely any two naturalists are 



agreed ; the fact being that they are very different from all other 



perching-birds, as is specially indicated by the forking of the spinal 



feather-tract on the back. They present, however, certain similarities 



