FLYCATCHERS 3 1 



bluish-white ground, spotted and dotted with lavender-grey 

 and yellowish-brown. Jt feeds largely upon ants, flies and 

 grasshoppers. 



It is found in Upper Natal, and we met with it at Orange 

 Grove, just outside of Johannesburg (north). 



We will deal with the Eobin Chats under another chapter. 



FLYCATCHERS 



The Flycatchers (Family Musicapidce) may all be in- 

 cluded amongst the truest friends of the agriculturist and 

 are also dwellers of forest and bush. 



The Dusky Flycatcher (Alseonax adusta) is an ashy- 

 brown little bird with a white eyebrow, and is common in 

 the wooded belts of the South-Eastern portion of South 

 Africa. Length, 4| inches. 



It builds a neat little cup-shaped nest covered on the 

 outside with lichen, generally situated in a cavity or ledge 

 on the face of a rocky krantz overshadowed by trees ; 

 sometimes in a hollow in the bark of a tree- trunk. In 

 the neighbourhood of (irahamstown this bird has taken to 

 building in the fork of a pine-tree or on the top of a bundle 

 of debris (pine-needles, &c.) between the branches. It lays 

 three or four eggs of a greenish colour freckled with brown 

 and red- brown, during the months of September to December. 

 On one occasion when encamped with Dr. Stark in a kloof, 

 a little Dusky Flycatcher was seated on its nest in a tiny 

 niche in the face of a rock a foot or so from the doctor's 

 head, and although it was the first nest of this species he had 

 seen, needless to say the confiding little bird was left in 

 peace. 



The Cape Flycatcher (Batis capensis) has the top of the 

 head blue-grey, back olive-brown, tail-feathers black tipped 

 with white ; below white with a broad black band across 



