AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



To observe the utmost devotion of mated birds to one 

 another one should look among the plain- 

 Lovely in hued and songless ones : thus the humble, 

 their Lives unadorned flycatcher is as fussy as a cock 

 partridge over his hen ; never far away, and 

 for ever popping titbits of food into her bill. When he 

 is proud of some feat of fly-catching as when he has 

 taken a butterfly on the wing he will land near the 

 nest whereon his mate sits, and give a peculiar call 

 " Zit-zit! " She seems to know it means that he has 

 something really good to offer, comes off the nest, and 

 for five or ten minutes suffers herself to be fed, as 

 though she were a helpless nestling. 



IT is woe to almost any insect that drifts across the 



croquet lawn which a spotted flycatcher 



The has made the headquarters of his summer 



Croquet fly-fishing. The hoops serve him admirably 



Lawn Bird as watch-towers, and as he continuously 



makes his circular tours of the ground the 



sharp click of his beak, closing on his prey, brings a 



sense of the sternness of life to the quiet pleasure-lawn. 



His way is to make a goodly collection of flies before he 



hies to the nest to pass them to his young. He does not 



hesitate to bring them bees, and he ranks with swallows 



and nightjars as an expert butterfly hunter, a sport at 



which sparrows and others are sorry bunglers. The 



birds have a marked attachment for pleasure- lawns. 



They are now building second nests, or sitting on 



second clutches. The flycatchers are usually the last of 



our summer bird visitors to arrive; they at once set 



about nesting, with none of the usual delay observed by 



other migrants, and it seems that they are kept so busy 



88 



