SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 327 
From causes which it is not easy to explain, the female bird sits upon her 
eges as soon as they are laid, and we therefore sometimes find them in 
various stages of development in the same nest. 
As the Spotted Flycatcher breeds so very late in the season, and departs 
so early for its southern haunts, but one brood is reared in the year. 
Instances, however, have occurred where this bird has been known to rear 
two broods in the season. 
The whole of the upper plumage of the Spotted Flycatcher, including 
the wing-coverts, is hair-brown, the wings and tail being a little darker, 
with a few darker spots on the crown of the head. The lower parts 
are greyish white, suffused with buff on the flanks, and with light brown 
across the breast, which is streaked with dark brown. Beak dark brown ; 
irides dark hazel; legs, toes, and claws black. The female does not differ 
in colour from the male. The young birds in the nestling-plumage are 
“spotted ” Flycatchers in the strict sense of the word, each brown feather 
having a buff-coloured centre ; the underparts, however, are very similar to 
those of the adult. After the autumn moult, the innermost secondaries 
and the wing-coverts are broadly, and the quill and tail-feathers narrowly, 
tipped and margined with buff, which colour is suffused more or less distinctly 
over the entire upper surface, most prominently on the rump and upper 
tail-coverts. 
