324 BRITISH BIRDS. 
season. In Africa the Spotted Flycatcher is found as far south as Cape 
colony, in some parts, both of the north and south of the continent, being 
said to be a resident or partially migratory species. It is apparently a 
rare bird in Egypt, but common in Algeria, where it occurs on passage, a 
few remaining to breed. We have no record of this species from any of 
the Atlantic islands off the coasts of this continent. In China southwards 
to the Philippines and the Moluccas the Spotted Flycatcher is represented 
by a nearly allied form, the Muscicapa griseisticta of Swinhoe, differing in 
being slightly smaller, in being browner above, more broadly streaked on 
the breast, and with a shorter tail. In Eastern Siberia it is represented 
by two other nearly allied species, M. latirostris and M. sibirica. In the 
valley of the Angora the range of the Spotted Flycatcher overlaps that 
of its eastern representatives. M. sibirica has much darker underparts ; 
M. latirostris is without the spots on the breast ; and both are much smaller 
birds than M. grisola. Sharpe, in his ‘ Catalogue of the Birds in the 
British Museum,’ vol. iv., places these three species in three different 
genera, the characters of which chiefly depend on the form of the bill. 
This group of birds appears to me to be one in which the general style of 
coloration is of much greater generic value than slight differences in the 
shape of the bill. 
The Spotted Flycatcher rarely arrives in its summer haunts in Great 
Britain before the first or second week in May, generally not until the oak 
trees are partially in leaf, and the season affords abundance of insect food. 
It frequents the well-cultivated districts, and delights to haunt the borders 
of woods and well-timbered parks. It is also found commonly in gardens 
and pleasure-grounds and in orchards, often on the wooded banks of 
streams and ponds, and, more rarely, attaching itself to some small clump 
of trees in the centre of pastures, on whose long, drooping boughs it sits 
and ever and anon sallies forth to catch the passing insects. Gifted with 
no great powers of song, and exceedingly sober and chaste of dress, this 
little bird is very often passed unnoticed, unless its oft-repeated call-notes 
arrest the attention of the passer-by. Here, in his favourite haunts, 
you will most frequently observe him sitting upright and motionless on 
some favourite perch, either on a stake or iron fence, haystack, or long 
bare branch, watching intently the clouds of insects playing round him. 
As the flies come near he sallies out repeatedly and, fluttering in the air, 
secures them with a sharp snap of his bill, returning quickly and silently 
to his perch again to sit motionless as before. If it be in autumn, 
his mate and brood will be near him—perhaps all sitting in a row ona 
convenient fence, the parent birds catching insects and feeding their 
young. Spotted Flyeatchers are often seen hovering in airy flight over 
the meadow-grass, every now and then alighting to secure the small 
insects and beetles lurking on the stems of the herbage. They will some- 
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