80 SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 



the door having been left open; and another in a stove, which seemed 

 to be made 'too hot to hold them' when the thermometer in the 

 hothouse rose above 72, for the bird used then to quit the eggs, 

 and only returned to them again when it fell below that point; dis- 

 liking, it would seem, the ' Patent incubator/ 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 perhaps another of its provincial names the '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. 



Two broods are not uncommonly reared in a year, the first being 

 hatched in June; but the second may be only the consequence of the 

 first one having been destroyed. 



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

 spotted with pale orange-coloured 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. 



