PERCHING BIRDS. 101 



hours, when the flics are on the wing, these birds 

 may be seen on the look-out for food ; generally 

 perched on some prominent twig, or on the top of 

 a post or rail, from whence in an instant they dart, 

 swift as a shot, on the approach of an insect, 

 which is no sooner seen than caught, and appa- 

 rently, with great ease, by a short. and rapid move- 

 ment. With equal rapidity it is carried to the 

 twig on which the bird was perched, and where 

 he again keeps watch, as before. It is a very 

 quiet little bird, as silent in its manner as it is 

 sober in its plumage of ash-coloured brown. 



A remarkable fact, exhibiting the instinctive 

 sagacity of this bird, is related by T. A. Knight, 

 Esq. : A flycatcher built in his stove several suc- 

 cessive years, and he observed that the bird quitted 

 its eggs whenever the thermometer in his house 

 was above 72, and resumed her place on the nest 

 again, when it sank below that temperature. 



A still more striking story is told by Mr. White, 

 who says, that a pair built every year in the vines 

 that grew on the walls of his house at Selborne. 

 One year they chanced to place the nest on a 

 naked bough, and a hot sunny season coming on 

 before the brood was half-fledged, the heat became 

 insupportable, and must have inevitably destroyed 

 the tender young, had not the parent birds devised 

 a means to save them, by hovering over the riest 



