THE SPOTTED FLYCATCHER 



seems much attached to its haunts, and wanders little 

 during its sojourn in them. Like the Tree Pipit it usually 

 selects some spot where there are a few isolated trees, 

 some fences, or other coign of vantage upon which it can 

 perch, and from which it can make repeated sallies into 

 the air in chase of its prey. It will be seen quietly sitting 

 on some paling or bare branch, giving its tail a beat at 

 intervals, and from time to time uttering a sharp double 

 call-note, resembling chee-tic chee-tic cbee-tic-tic-tic. 

 Suddenly some passing insect is noticed, and the little 

 brown bird starts fluttering in pursuit, and the sharp 

 snap of the mandibles as they close over the fly is audible 

 some distance away. The bird returns to the same perch, 

 or to another close by, and the performance is repeated 

 at intervals. The male occasionally utters a low, rambling 

 song, something like that of the Whinchat. The food of 

 this species is composed of insects of many kinds. It is 

 said occasionally to eat berries, and possibly does consume 

 small fruits, as so many other insect-eating birds habi- 

 tually do. A few weeks after its arrival it commences 

 nest-building, and the eggs are laid at the end of May or 

 early in June. The nest is built in a crevice of the bark, 

 in a knot-hole, or on a horizontal branch of a fruit-tree 

 against a wall, amongst trelliswork in similar situations, 

 or even on a beam in a shed, supported on one side at 

 least, and is made of dry grass and moss, bound together 

 with cobwebs and wing-cases of insects, and lined with 

 roots, hair, and feathers. The eggs, four to six, range 

 from bluish white to clear pea-green, blotched, freckled, 

 and spotted with reddish brown of various shades. This 

 bird is not at all social during the breeding season, each 

 pair keeping to certain haunts. The brood and their 

 parents remain in company after the former leave the 

 nest, 



The adult Spotted Flycatcher has the general colour 

 of the upper parts greyish brown, the feathers on the 



