PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 



mixed with root* and bents, cobwebs, and sometimes bit* of bark and licheiut, 

 while the lining consists of hair, wool, etc., and sometimes a few feathers. (PI. xxix.) 

 It is usuiil to find a site occupied year after year, but hardly ever twice in a season. 

 Both sexes take part in building. Eggs generally 4-5, rarely 6 in number ; ground 

 colour generally with a tinge of bluish green at first, which often fades to yellowish 

 white, sometimes closely freckled with reddish brown and at other times boldly 

 blotched with chestnut and underlying purplish brown. Occasionally a set may 

 bo found with a blue ground and devoid of markings, presenting an interesting 

 approach to the eggs of the pied-flycatcher. (PI. D.) Average size of 100 eggs, 

 72 x -64 in. ( 18*3 x 13*8 mm.]. The eggs are usually laid in the last days of May 

 or early in June. Incubation is performed by the hen alone, and lasts 14 days. 

 Two broods are often, but not always, reared in the season, [r. c. R. J. | 



5. Food. Chiefly insects. The young are fed by both parents on insects, 

 including many species of Diptera, which are often too minute to determine. 

 [B. u T.] 



6. Song Period. The few notes composing its so-called song may be heard 

 irregularly during May and June. [B. i.. T.] 



PIED-FLYCATCHER [M utcicapa atricapilla Linnaeus. ' Goldfinch 

 (obsolete). French, ynbe.-mouche noir ; German, traurr Flirgenfdnger ; 

 Italian, balia nera], 



I. Description. The adult male pied-flycatcher may be distinguished at 

 a glance by the black upper parts relieved by a white bar across the forehead and 

 a large white patch on the wing ; the female by her olive-brown colour and a 

 similar white patch on the wing. (PI. 71.) Length 5 in. [127 mm.]. The male, 

 in addition to the white on the forehead and wing, has the rump greyish, and more 

 or less white along the outer web of the outer and penultimate tail feathers. In 

 some individuals no white is present, in others the three outermost feathers may 

 have a quite conspicuous amount of white. This is a variable character, not 

 dependent on sex or age. The white on the wings increases with age. In fully 

 mature birds, and in the extended wing, a white bar runs right across the bases of 

 the primaries and secondaries, and extends down the outer vanes of the innermost 

 secondaries. The major coverts of the secondaries, which are white, largely con- 

 ceal the secondary area of the white bar, and in the closed wing the primary portion 



1 By the rule of strict priority the name should be M. hypoleuca Pallma (Me Hartert, Vog. 

 PaL Fauna, p. 



