278 Notice of the Arrival of Twenty-four Summer Birds 



have yet been able to ascertain, only to the locality where it 

 is evidently upon the increase. 



In this situation the males generally arrive about the mid- 

 dle of April, the females not until ten or fifteen days after- 

 wards : they commence nidification early in May, and the 

 young are excluded about the first or second week in June. 

 We have hitherto invariably found their nests in the hole of 

 a tree, sometimes at a considerable height, occasionally near 

 the surface of the gi'ouud, and for two successive years in the 

 stump of a felled tree. In texture and formation the nest is 

 very similar to those of the Greater Pettychaps, Blackcap, and 

 Whitethroat, being only slightly put together, composed al- 

 most entirely of small fibrous roots and dried grass, always 

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

 the outer side, but entirely without moss. Their eggs vary 

 in number : we have found their nests with five, six, and now 

 and then with seven : their colour a pale green, and so greatly 

 resemble the eggs of the Redstart, that it is frequently very 

 difficult to distinguish them unless contrasted together : they 

 are, however, far from being so elegantly made, of a rounder 

 form, and rather less, weighing from 23 to 30 grains. 



The males soon after their arrival, should the weather be at 

 all favourable, will frequently sit for a considerable time on 

 the decayed branch of a tree, constantly repeating their short, 

 little varied, although far from unpleasing song, evei-y now 

 and then interrupted by the pursuit and capture of some 

 passing insect. Their alarm-note is not very unlike the word 

 chuck, which they commonly repeat two or three times when 

 approached, and which readily leads to their detection. The 

 manners and habits of the Pied Flycatcher have considerable 

 affinity to those of the Redstart : they arrive about the same 

 time, associate together, and often build in the same holes, for 

 which they will sometimes contend. On one occasion we found 

 a dead female Redstart in the nest of a Pied Flycatcher con- 

 taming two eggs ; and at another time, when both these species 

 had nests widiin a few inches of each other, upon the Red- 

 start's being removed, the female Redstart took forcible posses- 

 sion of the Flycatcher's nest, incubated the eggs, and brought 

 up the young. 



We have now (August 26th) two young Pied Flycatchers, 

 taken from the nest on the 21st of last June, and should we 

 succeed in our attempts to domesticate them, we may in all 

 probability on some future occasion make a remark or two 

 upon the change of their plumage from youth to maturity. 



Wheatear. — We were not able to see the Wheatear be- 

 fore 



