THE PIED FLYCATCHER 79 
hopped about uneasily in a neighbouring tree, uttering its mono- 
tonous and unmusical chirrup, but molested me no further. It 
would seem then that the garden bird, grown familiar with the 
human form, was unsuspicious of danger, while the other, who had 
not been accustomed to see her sanctuary approached, immediately 
took alarm. It is supposed that the same birds are in the habit of 
returning annually to their old resort. Both the above incidents 
tend to give weight to this opinion: one of the birds having been 
reared, probably in the garden, and so having been accustomed to 
the sight of men from the first; the other having been always 
a recluse. The fact which fell under my own notice, that a nest 
was built, anda brood reared for three successive years in exactly 
the same spot, is, I think, conclusive evidence that either the same 
birds or their immediate descendants were the architects, it 
being scarcely credible that three several pairs of birds should 
have fixed on the same spot by accident. Mr. Denham Weir 
has observed that the Spotted Flycatcher consumes only a 
day and a half in the construction of its nest, and that a pair of 
birds which he watched 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. The young birds assume the adult plumage 
in their first year, and soon learn to hawk for their prey as well as 
their parents. I have recorded elsewhere an instance in which the 
parent birds contrived to feed a disabled young one after it had 
left the nest. The Flycatcher arrives in England about the end 
of April, and leaves about the end of September. 
THE PIED FLYCATCHER 
MUSCICAPA ATRICAPILLA 
Upper plumage and tail black, the wings black, with the central coverts white ; 
scapulars edged with white; under plumage white. In the female the 
black is replaced by greyish brown, the white is dingy, and the three 
lateral tail feathers are edged with white. Length five inches. Eggs 
pale blue, generally without spots. 
THE Pied Flycatcher, so called from its feathers being varied with 
black and white, is a smaller bird than the preceding, and by no 
means so common, being very local as a breeder. It appears, indeed, 
to be mainly confined to the northern counties of England, where 
it arrives about the middle of April, and builds its nest of dry leaves, 
small roots, grass, and a little hair, loosely put together, in the hole 
of a tree. There it lays from five to seven pale blue eggs, very 
like, both in size and colour, those of the Redstart, which it also 
much resembles in habits. It has more claim to be considered a 
songster than the Spotted Flycatcher. In places where it is frequent 
it is often observed to settle on the decayed stump of a tree, con- 
