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to do all the day long. Nothing can be more graceful or pretty 

 than the action of these birds in taking their prey. The good 

 work a pair do in clearing a garden of insect pests may be gathered 

 from the following observations of Mr. Denham Weir, who had a 

 pair of these birds which nested in his garden. He watched them 

 carefully, and found that they fed their young no less than five 

 hundred and thirty-seven times in one day, beginning at twenty-five 

 minutes before four o'clock in the morning, and ending at ten 

 minutes before nine in the evening. It is impossible to give the 

 precise number of flies that might have been consumed by their 

 brood, as they sometimes brought to them one large fly, at other 

 times two, three, four, five, and even more flies of different sizes. 

 After their arrival they do not lose much time in preparing for 

 their future progeny ; indeed, they have been known to complete 

 their nest in one day and a half The nest is built of moss, dried 

 grass, and straw, and is lined with hair and feathers, and sometimes 

 with cobwebs. The number of eggs is five ; they are of a bluish- 

 white colour, clouded and spotted with light brownish-red, generally 

 darker at the larger end ; some of them resemble the eggs of the 

 Robin, only a shade smaller. They build in the hole of a wall, or 

 of a tree, on the ledges of outbuildings, between the branch and 

 the trunk of the stately oak, elm, beech, and various other trees, 

 in ivy, or in woodbine climbing up a porch, on the head of a 

 garden rake set up against a wall, in ornamental stone-work in 

 gardens ; one I knew built for many years on the window-sill, 

 another in a doorway through which people vvere constantly passing, 

 and would not leave its nest until just within reach of the hand ; 

 one in a rose-bush against a cottage wall, which would actually let 

 the inmates touch it while sitting on the nest ; another pair built 

 in a bird-cage hung against a tree in an orchard A Song Thrush 

 built a nest on a hanging bough of a spruce fir, where she hatched 

 and brought up four young ones ; on examining the apparently- 

 deserted nest a month later, we found that a Flycatcher had built 

 a beautiful nest inside, where she was sitting on four egg?;. I have 

 known these birds, after they had brought up their fust brood 

 successfully, build ai. cither nest on the top of the previous one, 



