40 THE FLY CATCHER. 



year on July the llth, and young martins (hirun- 

 dines urbiccej were then fledged in their nests. Both 

 species will breed again once ; for I see by my Fauna 

 of last year, that young broods came forth so late as 

 September the 18th. Are not these late hatchings 

 more in favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, 

 some young martins remained in their nests last year 

 so late as September the 29th ; and yet they totally 

 disappeared with us by the 5th of October. 



How strange it is, that the swift, which seems 

 to live exactly the same life with the swallow and 

 house-martin, should leave us before the middle of 

 August invariably ! while the latter stay often till 

 the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers 

 of house-martins on the 7th of November. The 

 martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight 

 together ; an uncommon assemblage of summer and 

 winter birds ! 



A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the 

 alauda trivialis, or rather, perhaps, of the, motacilla 

 trochilus} still continues to make a sibilous shivering 

 noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of 

 Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these 

 parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. 

 There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, 

 which seems to have escaped observation ; and that 

 is, it takes its stand on the top of some stake, or 

 post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catch- 

 ing a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the 

 ground, but returning still to the same stand for 

 many times together. 



I perceive there are more than one species of the 

 motacilla trochilus: Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's 

 Philosophical Letters, that he has discovered three. 

 In these, there is again an instance of some very 

 common birds that have as yet no English name. 



Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the 



