SPOTTED FLYCATCHER 87 



an entrance door, which, whenever it was opened, caused 

 them to fly off; another pair on the angle of a lamp-post in 

 Leeds ; and another on the ornamental crown of one in 

 London. Another pair placed theirs on the end of a 

 garden rake ; another in a cage hung up in a tree, the door 

 having been left open ; and one nest was built in a hot- 

 house, which, when the thermometer rose, the bird used then 

 to quit, returning again when it fell. Holes in trees are 

 also built in, ledges of rocks, holes in walls, the exposed 

 roots of trees over a bank, the side of a faggot stack, or 

 a beam in an out-building, whence the provincial name 

 " Beam Bird." One pair made their nest on the hinge of an 

 out-house door, in a village where people were continually 

 passing and repassing. 



Mr. Clive L. Phillips has informed me of the curious 

 fact of a nest of a pair of these birds from which two eggs 

 had been taken by some one, having then had an egg laid 

 in it by a Chaffinch, and two more by the birds themselves, 

 after repairing the nest, both the species being then seen 

 about the spot. 



Two broods are rarely reared in a year, the first being 

 hatched in June : the second, when produced, may be in 

 consequence of the first nest having been destroyed. 



The eggs, four or five in number, are greyish or 

 greenish white, spotted with or clouded with rusty brown ; 

 in some the broad end is blotted with grey red. After the 

 young have quitted the nest they are very sedulously 

 attended by their parents. 



