236 THE PIED FLY-CATCHER. 



the preceding, with a distinct white patch on the forehead, from 

 which, with ■ the lighter rump and throat, it takes its name of 

 pied ; the bill, feet, and claws are black ; the iris, hazel. It 

 has all the characteristics of the preceding — nidification, time 

 of arriving and leaving, &c. For although I never saw it near 

 St Andrews, it is scattered about and plentiful in Cumberland 

 and Westmoreland, generally near some old oak plantations and 

 water. It has an affinity to the redstart more than to the 

 spotted fly-catcher. They arrive about the same time, frequent 

 the same places, and often contend for the same hole for their 

 nest. A writer in the "Magazine of Natural History" says : — 

 "The migration of this species appears to be chiefly confined to 

 the northern Counties of England, and rarely seen in the south, 

 although occasionally met with in Norfolk, Suffolk, Middlesex, 

 Surrey, and Dorsetshire. In some parts of Westmoreland it is 

 very plentiful. The males generally arrive about the middle of 

 April ; the females ten or fifteen days later. They begin 

 nidification early in May ; the young hatched the first or second 

 week in June. We have invariably got their nests in the hole 

 of a tree and in the stump of a felled tree. The nest is like 

 those of the greater petty-chaps, blackcap, and white-throat, 

 slightly put together — composed of small roots and dried grass, 

 lined with a little hair, and generally a few decayed leaves on the 

 outside, but entirely without moss. Their eggs vary in number — 

 from five to seven ; colour, pale green — and so much like those of 

 the redstart that it is often difficult to distinguish them ; but are 

 rounder. Soon after their arrival the males often sit for a long time 

 on the decayed branch of a tree contantly repeating their short, 

 little varied song, every now and then interrupted by the pursuit 

 of some passing insect. Their habits are so like those of the 

 redstart that a dead female redstart was found in the nest of a 

 pied fly-catcher containing two eggs. Another time when both 

 these species had nests within a few inches of each other, upon 

 the redstart's nest being removed, the female redstart took 

 forcible possession of the fly-catcher's nest, incubated the eggs, 

 and brought up the young ;" but sometimes they are both 

 driven out of their nests by a swarm of bees taking possession 

 of the hole. 



The genera of birds might, with few exceptions, be known by 

 the colour of the eggs ; but those of the two fly-catchers are one 

 of those exceptions, for they sometimes differ so much in colour 

 as if the two species had no affinity — the one being blue, like 

 the hedge sparrow's ; the other pink, spotted with red, like a 



