SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 325 
times pursue an unusually large insect for fifty yards or more; and then 
the Flycatcher’s peculiar flight is seen to perfection. This bird also often 
visits manure-heaps, feeding on the small beetles; and it may be seen 
searching old walls for food, by fluttering in front of, and occasionally 
clinging to, them. 
The Spotted Flycatcher often seeks its meal in the dusk of the evening, 
pursuing various small moths and beetles; and it is one of the earliest 
birds astir in the light summer mornings, its monotonous call-notes 
being heard just as early as the songs of the Thrush and Blackbird. 
The food of this species is composed largely of insects, especially 
of flies and gnats; spiders and beetles are also eaten, as well as various 
kinds of butterflies and moths; and, on the authority of Collett, it is said 
to feed on berries in the autumn months, and is then caught in snares 
laid for Thrushes, and baited with the berries of the mountain-ash. 
It is very widely and popularly believed that the Spotted Flycatcher is 
not gifted with any powers of song; but this is an error. His song is 
heard but rarely, it is true, and is uttered in such a low tone as to be 
scarcely heard a few yards away. It is given forth both when the bird is 
sitting at rest and when fluttering in the air after insects. It consists of 
a few rambling notes, not unlike part of the Whinchat’s song. The 
monotonous call-note may perhaps be best expressed by the letters zt, z¢ ; 
it is uttered in rapid succession from one perching-place, and every now 
and then the tail is jerked to and fro with graceful motion. Sometimes a 
second syllable is added to the call-note, which then sounds like zt-chick. 
Although the Spotted Flycatcher is capable of rapid undulating flight, 
it but rarely avails itself of its powers, and seems unwilling to fly for long 
distances at a time. Its usual mode of progression is from tree to tree or 
bush to bush; and when once it has taken up its summer-quarters, it 
rarely strays far away from them until it leaves them in the autumn for 
its winter home. The date of its departure is a comparatively early one ; 
this bird leaves our shores long before the last Swallows take their depar- 
ture, and is rarely seen after the third week in September. 
Although the Spotted Flycatcher arrives here in May, its nest is seldom 
found before the latter end of the month, and sometimes not until early 
June. Its breeding-grounds are gardens, orchards, well-timbered parks, 
and woods, on the outskirts of which the birds may be repeatedly seen in 
search of their msect prey. The nesting-site is a varied one—in the 
erevices of the bark of old trees, in trellis-work overgrown with creeping 
plants, on the horizontal limbs of trees (usually near the trunk), and 
on wall-trained fruit-trees. A favourite place is in shallow holes in tree- 
trunks, such as a small cavity formed by the action of the rain rotting the 
wood where a branch has been broken away. In all instances, however, it 
is well supported, on one side at least, either by the trunk of the tree or by 
