510 



FLY- CATCHER. 



tarsi and toes, the former of which is rather short, are 

 black. It resorts only to the rich and cultivated 

 parts of the country, and is not found in open places 

 or in the uplands. It is a very familiar bird, and 

 appears to court the neighbourhood of houses, which 

 indeed are obviously the places where its insect food 

 is most abundant ; and as it lives on winged insects 

 and not on the caterpillars, it does not arrive so soon 

 as those birds which feed chiefly on the latter ; and it 

 also quits the country early, because, as autumn sets 

 in, such insects as are left, unless they are very small 

 ones, are found near the ground ; and though this 

 bird comes near houses, its habit is to seek for its food 

 in the free air. This food, which consists chiefly of 

 dipterous or two winged insects, is captured as they 

 cross the perch of the bird, so that it is a Her in wait, 

 and springs upon its prey, instead of giving them chase 

 upon the wing, as is the case with the fly-hunting 

 bird. In the northern parts, it is rare ; and not very- 

 abundant, except at favourite spots even in the south 

 of England, but is very plentiful in the south of 

 Europe. During the breeding season it frequently 

 makes its nest in wall trees, or in the holes of old 

 standard fruit trees, and if other circumstances do not 

 favour it, it does not hesitate to place its nest on the 

 ends of beams and rafters in outhouses ; on these ac- 

 counts it is called the beam bird, the rafter-bird, the 

 bee-bird, and a variety of other local names. 



From their partiality to gardens and orchards, they 

 have been regarded as destroyers of fruit. It is a 

 prevailing notion in the county of Kent, that they 

 suck the cherries ; but individuals who have daily 

 watched their proceedings in the French orchards, 

 could never perceive that they attacked that fruit, 

 though frequently allured to the trees by the pre- 

 sence of insects. By sudden jerks and turnings they 

 will often lay hold on one of the latter that seemed to 

 have eluded their pursuit ; but in general they appear 

 to be shy, melancholy, and stupid birds. Their nests, 

 which are laboriously constructed, and which they 

 seem to be little careful of concealing, are by no means 

 models of neatness. The materials are generally 

 vegetable fibres, moss, wool, &c., interwoven with 

 spiders' webs, and lined with wool ; and the situation 

 is in trees or bushes, or the limb of a fruit tree nailed 

 to a wall, in holes in the walls of out-buildings, or 

 on the end of a beam, rafter, &c. The eggs are four 

 or five in number, and not unlike those of the redbreast, 

 being bluish white,with rust-coloured spots.but the latter 

 more distinct, and not so much confined to the larger 

 end, where, however, they are of a deeper tint. Both 

 sexes share the care of incubation. When the young 

 leave the nest, they are conducted by the parents to 

 some neighbouring wood or grove, where insects 

 abound, and where they may be seen darting, in every 

 direction, in pursuit of flies. As the note of this spe- 

 cies is a simple weak chirp, seldom uttered till the 

 young have fled, the bird is more readily discovered 

 than the redstart and other summer migrants, which, 

 perhaps, are less common. The spotted fly-catcher 

 has been frequently noticed in Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire. A correspondent of London's Magazine of 

 Natural History had a nest of this bird brought to 

 him, which he describes as follows : " It was built 

 upon a wooden rake, that was carelessly lying on the 

 ground in a cottage garden at Bransford, near Wor- 

 cester ; in this nest the female laid five eggs, and 

 even sat on them indifferent to any one passing in the 

 garden, till the nest was taken by a boy belonging to 



the cottage. The nest is carelessly put together, yet 

 prettily constructed of long green moss, intermixed 

 with the catkins of the hazel, and fibres, the interior 

 lined with thin straw and wool ; eggs thickly spotted 

 with brown." 



The Pled Fly-catcher (Muscicapa hictuosa). This is 

 a more handsome bird than the former, and more 

 energetic in its manners. Its bill is of firmer struc- 



Pied Fly -catcher. 



ture, and it altogether approaches more near in cha- 

 racter to the shrikes, than any of the other fly-catchers 

 do with which we are familiar in this part of the 

 world. An argument has been raised among natural- 

 ists whether this species be or be not a permanent 

 inhabitant of the British islands ; but it does not 

 appear that there is much argument in favour of their 

 residence during the winter. As summer migrants 

 they frequent a different part of the country, keeping 

 more inland and upland than the spotted species, and 

 ranging along the western slope of the central eleva- 

 tion of England as far as Cumberland. It is worthy 

 of remark that this bird follows nearly the same ground 

 as the red-backed shrike, the species which, perhaps, 

 it most resembles out of its own genus. In size it is 

 nearly equal to the linnet ; and its colours, which are 

 subject to very remarkable seasonal changes, may be 

 thus described, with a passing remark, that in almost 

 all the fly-catchers with which we are well acquainted, 

 and which are migratory, the winter plumage of the 

 two sexes is very similar, while the summer plumage 

 of the male bird varies much from the winter, and 

 that of the female undergoes little or no change. 

 The bill black, the irides of the eyes hazel, the front 

 of the head white, the crown of the head, cheeks, 

 eyes, and the whole of the tipper parts, black, the 

 the smaller wing coverts, and the greater coverts of 

 the primores are dusky ; the six first quill feathers, 

 K holly dusky, the rest white at the base, increasing till 

 the three last feathers are wholly white, except a spot 

 of black near the point of the exterior web ; the 

 upper parts of the bird, from chin to tail, are white, 

 the tail is dusky black, the two exterior feathers white 

 on their outer webs, and near the shaft on the inner 

 webs, except at the point ; the legs are black. The 

 female has no white on the forehead ; the whole of 

 the upper parts are dusky brown, the under parts 

 are dirty white, and in the wings the white is less 

 conspicuous than in the male. 



The following facts, given by Selby, are calculated 

 to throw considerable light upon the characters of 

 this bird. " Its mode of life, and the species of food 

 upon which it subsists, also militate against the idea 

 of its wintering in this island, for, living entirely upon 

 winged insects, it would be impossible for it to pro- 



