SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 



327 



From causes \vlrich it is not easy to explain, the female bird sits upon her 

 eggs as soon as they are laid, and we therefore sometimes find them in 

 various stages of development in the same nest. 



As the Spotted Flycatcher breeds so very late in the season, and departs 

 so early for its southern haunts, but one brood is reared in the year. 

 Instances, however, have occurred where this bird has been known to rear 

 two broods in the season. 



The whole of the upper plumage of the Spotted Flycatcher, including 

 the wing-coverts, is hair-brown, the wings and tail being a little darker, 

 with a few darker spots on the crown of the head. The lower parts 

 are greyish white, suffused with buff on the flanks, and with light brown 

 across the breast, which is streaked with dark brown. Beak dark brown ; 

 irides dark hazel ; legs, toes, and claws black. The female does not differ 

 in colour from the male. The young birds in the nestling-plumage are 

 " spotted " Flycatchers in the strict sense of the word, each brown feather 

 having a buff-coloured centre ; the underparts, however, are very similar to 

 those of the adult. After the autumn moult, the innermost secondaries 

 and the wing-coverts are broadly, and the quill and tail-feathers narrowly, 

 tipped and margined with buff, which colour is suffused more or less distinctly 

 over the entire upper surface, most prominently on the rump and upper 

 tail-coverts. 



