THE SPOT TEDIFILY CATCHER 
seems much attached to its haunts, and wanders little 
during its sojourninthem. Like the Tree Pipit it usually 
selects some spot where there are a few isolated trees, 
some fences, or other coign of vantage upon which it can 
perch, and from which it can make repeated sallies into 
the air in chase of its prey. It will be seen quietly sitting 
on some paling or bare branch, giving its tail a beat at 
intervals, and from time to time uttering a sharp double 
call-note, resembling chee-tic—chee-tic—chee-tic-tic-tic. 
Suddenly some passing insect is noticed, and the little 
brown bird starts fluttering in pursuit, and the sharp 
snap of the mandibles as they close over the fly is audible 
some distance away. ‘The bird returns to the same perch, 
or to another close by, and the performance is repeated 
at intervals. ‘The male occasionally utters a low, rambling 
song, something like that of the Whinchat. The food of 
this species is composed of insects of many kinds. It is 
said occasionally to eat berries, and possibly does consume 
small fruits, as so many other insect-eating birds habi- 
tually do. A few weeks after its arrival it commences 
nest-building, and the eggs are laid at the end of May or 
early in June. The nest is built in a crevice of the bark, 
in a knot-hole, or on a horizontal branch of a fruit-tree 
against a wall, amongst trelliswork in similar situations, 
or even on a beam in a shed, supported on one side at 
least, and is made of dry grass and moss, bound together 
with cobwebs and wing-cases of insects, and lined with 
roots, hair, and feathers. ‘The eggs, four to six, range 
from felch white to clear pea-green, blotched, freckled, 
and spotted with reddish brown of various shades. ‘This 
bird is not at all social during the breeding season, each 
pair keeping to certain haunts. The brood and their 
parents remain in company after the former leave the 
nest. 
The adult Spotted Flycatcher has the general colour 
of the upper parts greyish brown, the feathers on the 
187 
