PIED FLYCATCHER. 41 



PIED FLYCATCHEE. 



Muscicajja atricapilla. 



A RARE visitor to the southern counties. Two specimens 

 were obtained at Lancing, on May ] 7thj 1873, and about the 

 same time another, a male, was picked iip dead at Sunt, near 

 Lindfiekl. I examined all of these. 



On April 10th, 1853, my notice was attracted by the ex- 

 treme whiteness of the breast of a bird high up in an oak 

 tree, in my own grounds at Cowfold, and not knowing Avhat 

 it was, I shot it. It proved to be an adult male o£ this 

 species, and is now in my own collection. Mr. Knox men- 

 tions one killed in 1837 at Halnaker, and another at Mouls- 

 combe, near Brighton. Mr. A. F. Griffith, of that town, 

 informs me that he saw a Pied Flycatcher near the Hassocks 

 Station of L.B.S.C. railway in May 1888. 



The following notices of the Pied Flycatcher in Sussex 

 appear in the ^Zoologist ' : — (p. 3174) a male shot at Firle 

 Place, in May 1851 ; (p. G605) eight occurrences near 

 Worthing, between the spring of 1853 and that of 1858 ; 

 (p. 497, s. s.) a female shot at Uckfield in 1866 ; and 

 (p. 4691, s, s.) one is mentioned which flew into an open 

 window of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in October 1875, and 

 was preserved by Mr. Swaysland. 



In addition to these, Mr. Jefl'ery records two seen in the 

 neighbourhood of Chichester, in May 1881 (p. 49, vol. for 

 that year) . 



Its note is a low warble commencing zic, zic, zic. 



