MUSICAPA GRISOLA. 233 



June, he saw them begin to build. Early on Friday afternoon 

 it was finished. On Thursday, the 27th, the female began to 

 sit upon four eggs, and on the 24th of July the young were 

 ripe." Then he tells us that he got up in the morning and saw 

 them begin to feed their young, and watched them from 

 twenty-five minutes before four o'clock in the morning till ten 

 minutes before nine at night, and minutely enumerates the 

 number of times they fed them from hour to hour — no fewer 

 than 537 times in the day. So one does not know whether 

 most to admire the assiduity of the bird or the patience of its 

 observer ; for he says : — 



"At twenty -five minutes before four o'clock they commenced feeding 

 their young. From that time until four o'clock they fed them ten times ; 

 from four to five, sixteen times ; from five to six, twenty-eight times; from 

 six to seven, twenty-nine times ; from seven to eight, thirty-four times ; 

 from eight to nine, forty times ; from nine to ten, thirty-nine times ; from 

 ten to eleven, thirty-five times ; from eleven to twelve, forty-four times ; 

 from twelve to one, forty times ; from one to two, thirty-three times ; from 

 two to three, forty-eight times ; from three to four, thirty-seven times ; 

 from four to five, thirty-eight times ; from five to six twenty-one times; 

 from six to seven, sixteen times ; from seven to eight,; wency cimes ; and 

 from eight to ten minutes before nine o'clock they fed them nine times. 

 They thus fed their young in the course of the day 537 times. Their 

 motions were so uncommonly rapid that I could not for a single moment 

 keep my eye off the nest. " 



Just fancy this ! How could patient Mr Weir himself, like 

 patience on a monument smiling at grief, get time to eat, or 

 fulfil the uses of Nature for a whole day ? He tells us that 

 " before they fed themthey alighted upon a tree and looked round 

 about them ;" and that " by short jerks they usually caught the 

 winged insects," and " beat off most vigorously all kinds of 

 small birds that approached their nest." He also says — " It is 

 impossible to give the number of flies consumed by their 

 brood, as they sometimes brought one large fly ; at other times 

 two, three, four, or five, and even more flies of different sizes." 



Mr White of Selborne says : — 



■" The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute and the most 

 familiar ; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine or a sweet- 

 briar, against the wall of a house, or in the hole of a wall, or on the end of 

 a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where people are 

 going in and out all day long. This bird does not make the least preten- 

 sion to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it thinks its young 

 in danger from cats or other annoyances. It breeds but once ; and retires 

 early." 



He says — 



"A pair one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough. But 

 a hot season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of 



