FLYCATCHERS. 77 



Flycatchers concern themselves only with things that 

 fly, and they catch these on the wing. The King Crow 

 and the Bee-eater, as we have seen, do business in 

 that line too, but they take their stations on high 

 places and pursue their quarry into the sky. The 

 Flycatcher haunts sylvan shades and darts about 

 among the branches, snapping up its tiny prey. 



Indian Flycatchers may be divided into two sorts, 

 the plain and the fancy. Of the fancy we have two 

 species in Bombay. The first is the Paradise Fly- 

 catcher (Tchitrea paradisi), which wears two streamers 

 of white satin ribbon in its tail and looks 'like a 

 meteor as it flits from tree to tree. Its body and 

 wings are white too, exquisitely white, but its head 

 and throat and distinguished crest are glossy black, 

 with green reflections. It is a bird that would catch 

 the eye of a blind man, and everybody who has 

 roamed about Matheran or Mahableshwar must be 

 familiar with it, but I daresay some will be surprised 

 to hear that it is a Bombay bird. The fact is that 

 the white plumage is the livery of the male only, and 

 even he does not attain it until he is well advanced in 

 years. Before that the upper parts of his body and 

 his wings and tail, including streamers, are of a rich 

 chestnut hue. At an earlier stage he wants the stream- 

 ers, and the female never has them. A young bird, 

 in fact, or a female, though handsome enough in its 

 chestnut suit and black hat, looks like a sort of Bulbul 

 and attracts little notice. And, as we know, ladies and 

 children generally form the majority of a community. 

 Besides this, I believe that the Paradise Flycatcher 

 only visits us for a short time during the cold season. 

 I have never heard of its nest being found on this 



