28 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



alarm. Then, in due course, the hen will venture 

 to visit her nursery, but before finally re-settling 

 on her eggs, she is apt to enter and leave the hole 

 several times. Eventually, too, she may even allow 

 herself to be caught on the nest, a happening, 

 indeed, which may have taken place in the first 

 instance with a nest found by looking haphazard, 

 and especially if the eggs are highly incubated. 



While the nest is under examination, its owners 

 and often the male in particular will frequently 

 approach the disturber of their peace to within a 

 few feet. Then is the time to take stock of the 

 birds' normal notes. These are two in number, 

 either used separately or tacked on to one another. 

 The first by some naturalists wrongly attributed 

 to the female alone is a weak whit ; the second 

 a rather faint, short, and repeated chic or ic.* 

 United whit-tic the cry becomes suggestive of a 

 very subdued Redstart calling, though the latter 's 

 cry is more of a weet (iterated) and louder, with a 

 fair interval between each utterance, and some- 

 times augmented by a staccato tc-tc. The song of 

 the Pied Flycatcher is pleasing and characteristic. 

 Commencing with a strain, usually twice repeated, 

 slightly reminiscent of certain notes of the Great 

 Tit, e.g., whit-chichy, whit-chichy, it terminates 

 in one not so unlike part of the Redstart's refrain. 

 It is generally delivered from a tree, frequently from 

 a lofty if not a dead bough, but occasionally a 



* I have also rarely heard the male call wee, iterated two or three times. 



