Birds of Britain 



though exceptionally in the crevice of a wall ; it is composed 

 of bents and moss, and lined with feathers and hair. The 

 eggs, sometimes numbering as many as nine, are of a uniform 

 pale blue. Insects form its chief diet, but it is not so ex- 

 clusive an insect-feeder as the preceding species, nor does it 

 seize so much of its food on the wing, but frequently drops 

 from its perch to pick a spider or other creeping thing from 

 the ground. 



In spring the male is black, with a white forehead and 

 white outer margins to the secondaries. The under parts 

 are white. The female has the upper parts olive brown, and 

 those parts which are white in the male, rather buffish in 

 tint. The young bird is spotted, but after the first moult 

 it resembles the female, except that the wing patches in 

 the male are more distinct. The young male assumes his 

 full plumage at his first spring moult. Length 5 in. ; wing 

 3-1 in. 



THE RED-BREASTED FLYCATCHER 



Muscicapa parva, Bechstein 



This species is of irregular and local distribution in 

 Eastern Europe as far west as certain portions of Germany 

 and South-east France, and it is only a few stragglers, driven 

 out of their course by adverse weather or carried along by 

 a rush of other migrants, that reach our coast. 



In size it resembles our common species of Flycatcher, 

 but differs in coloration. The adult males are of a uniform 

 greyish brown above, with ashy grey cheeks and with the 



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