SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 
BEAM BIRD. RAFTER. COB-WEB BIRD. 
BEE BIRD. CHERRY CHOPPER. POST BIRD. CHERRY 
SUCKER. CHANCHIDER. 
Y GWYBEDOG, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH. 
Muscicapa grisola, MontaGu. PENNANT. 
Muscicapa. Musca—A fly. Capio—To catch or take. 
Grisola—...csocreees ? 
Tuts bird is common throughout Europe, as far north as 
Norway and Sweden; as also in Africa, along the whole of 
the western coast, from the north to the south. It is well 
known in England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland; but 
least so in the extreme north. It frequents walled and other 
gardens, orchards, lawns, shrubberies, and pleasure grounds. 
The Spotted Flycatcher is with us a summer visitant, but 
unusually late in its arrival, which varies in different localities 
and seasons, from the 7th. to the 20th. of May; and it 
departs similarly about the end of September, or even as 
late as the middle of October. 
This familiar bird is very noticeable for a solitariness and 
depression of appearance, as well as for its habit of perching 
on the point of a branch, the top of a stake, a rail, or a 
projection of or hole in a wall, from whence it can ‘compre- 
hend all vagroms’ in the shape of winged insects that come 
within its ken. You seem to think that it is listless, but on 
a sudden it darts off, sometimes led a little way in chase in 
an irregular manner like a butterfly; a snap of the bill tells 
you that it has unerringly captured a fly, and it is back to 
its perch, which it generally, but not invariably returns to 
