Birp LIFE AND BirD PHOTOGRAPHY. 199 
eggs. This picture needs no lengthy description, so we pass to 
the next. 
This blackbird’s nest was built in an espalier apple tree 
trained against a stone wall. The camera and operator were 
hidden behind a screen of old sacking. Mr Legard, who took 
this photograph, noticed that the bird in feeding its young had 
recourse to what is known as “ regurgitation.” 
This picture shows the nest and eggs of our familiar summer 
visitant, the spotted flycatcher, built in the ivy growing round 
the porch at Capenoch. 
Here we see the spotted flycatcher at its nest. 
This slide shows a young spotted flycatcher. 
Tue PirD FLYCATCHER. 
Our next five slides are of considerable interest, for they 
concern the pied flycatcher, a bird which is extremely local in 
its breeding haunts as regards Great Britain. I am very glad to 
be able to say that this bird now nests annually in the valleys of 
the Scaur and Shinnel. Here we see a view on the river Shinnel. 
The natural growth of alders afford plenty of nooks and crannies 
in which the pied flycatcher can make its nest, and the proximity 
of the river assures the bird of a constant supply of flies and 
insects. This is a photograph of the actual tree utilised by the 
pied flycatcher for nesting purposes. The hole shows the entrance 
_to the nest. Oddly enough a convenient hole at the top of the 
same tree was similarly used by a pair of spotted flycatchers. By 
carefully removing a portion of the tree we are able to display the 
nest and eggs. This nest was so badly lighted that with the lens 
stopped down to 45 an exposure of no less than 135 seconds was 
necessary. The eggs, as regards size and their pale blue coloura- 
tion, are not to be distinguished from those of the redstart, and the 
position of the nests of these two birds is often the same. But in 
the structure of the redstart’s nest it is usual to find feathers, 
whereas these are not made use of in the nest of the pied fly- 
catcher. Here we see the female pied flycatcher about to enter 
her nest to feed her young. This photograph was obtained by 
employing a dummy camera, to which in a few days she became so 
accustomed that she paid not the slightest regard to the real 
camera when it was placed in position. This slide shows two 
pied flycatchers at the nest at the same time, and affords an 
