PIED FLYCATCHER. 151 



is known to breed on the banks of the lire near Masham 

 but decreasing in numbers at Danby, Hackfall, and Caperby. 



The West Riding contains, perhaps, the chief resorts 

 of this interesting species, which nests in Bolton Woods in 

 Wharfedale ; in Nidderdale it visits the woods near Harro- 

 gate, Knaresborough, Fewston, Brimham, Guyscliffe, Loft- 

 house, Bewerley, and Harefield, being scarcer near Pateley 

 Bridge (in which locality two broods were hatched in 1869, 

 the second being on the 15 th of July). Other localities 

 annually resorted to in the West Riding are Stainborough 

 Woods, and those at Cannon Hall, both near Barnsley. 

 It has also been reported as breeding occasionally, and 

 singly, near Halifax, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Hebden Bridge, 

 Gisburn, Skelmanthorpe, Ripon, and in 1904 Mr. James 

 Moore of Morecambe informed me a pair nested near Ben- 

 tham, close to the Westmorland border. In 1811 the Rev. 

 James Dalton, a noted naturalist in his time, found it 

 breeding at Copgrove (near Boroughbridge) ; and in 1844 

 Ovenden (near Halifax), Harewood, and Studley were quoted 

 as breeding stations by Thomas Allis. I have no informa- 

 tion of their now being frequented, with the exception of 

 Studley, and there it only nests irregularly. 



In the East Riding it is more frequently observed on 

 passage than as a breeding species ; the only districts from 

 which its nest is recorded being Heslington, Pocklington, 

 and in Holderness, where the late Colonel B. B. Haworth- 

 Booth informed me he found one in a yew tree in June 1895. 



On the coast it occurs regularly at the periods cf the 

 vernal and autumnal migrations, in some seasons in consider- 

 able numbers. An interesting and unusual occurrence took 

 place at Flamborough on 3rd May 1866, and the two follow- 

 ing days, several specimens of both sexes in mature and 

 immature plumage being shot out of a large flock by Mr. M. 

 Bailey. Another very remarkable incident which occurred 

 at the latter end of April, " about fifty years ago," has 

 been communicated to me by Mr. J. Braim, formerly of 

 Sleights, who discovered no fewer than four Pied Flycatchers, 

 one male and three females, drowned in a rain-water tub, 



