SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 223 



scarce. Its eastern limits cannot at present be determined, 

 but it is found in Kussia, being exceedingly numerous in the 

 south, and De Filippi met with it in Persia. Canon Tris- 

 tram speaks of it as arriving in Palestine on the 23rd of 

 April and the two following days in great numbers, and 

 remaining to breed there. It also occurs in Arabia, and in 

 Africa southward to the confines of the Cape Colony ; but it 

 does not seem to have been observed in any of the Atlantic 

 Islands. 



The beak is dark brown ; the irides hazel ; the head and 

 the whole of the upper surface of the body and wing-coverts 

 hair-brown, the wing- and tail-quills being a little darker, 

 with a few dark brown spots on the top of the head ; the 

 tertials with a narrow margin of light brown ; the lower 

 parts dull white, with a patch of light brown across the 

 upper part of the breast, and a few dark brown streaks or 

 spots upon that and the chin, with a clear white space 

 between ; the sides and flanks tinged with yellowish-brown ; 

 legs, toes, and claws, black. Males and females are alike in 

 plumage. 



The whole length of the bird is five inches and five- 

 eighths. From the carpal joint to the end of the longest 

 quill- feather, three inches and three-eighths. 



The young, when ready to leave the nest, are truly 

 Spotted Flycatchers, each brown feather having a buff- 

 coloured tip, the ends of the great wing-coverts forming a 

 pale wood-brown bar across the wing ; lower surface white. 

 After their first moult, they may be distinguished from older 

 birds by the broader buff-coloured outer margins of the 

 tertials. 



The vignette represents the breast bone of this bird. 



