196 PASSERES. MUSCICAPAD.E. 



cessfully among the grass and low herbage, perch- 

 ing on the stalks of the weeds, and jumping out 

 after stationary, as well as vagrant, prey. I ob- 

 served it eat two spiders' nests, which it masticated, 

 as if peculiarly savoury. As it sat, it vomited a 

 little white body, which I found to be the globose 

 seed of the misseltoe berry. 



Incubation takes place in June and July. The 

 nest is rather a neat structure, though made of 

 coarse materials. It is a deep cup, about as large 

 as an ordinary tea-cup, narrowed at the mouth ; 

 composed of dried grass, intermixed with silk- 

 cotton, and sparingly with lichen and spiders' 

 nests, and lined with thatch-threads. It is usually 

 suspended between two twigs, or in the fork of 

 one, the margin being over-woven, so as to em- 

 brace the twigs. This is very neatly performed. 

 Specimens vary much in beauty : one before me 

 is particularly neat and compact, being almost glo- 

 bular in form, except that about one-fourth of 

 the globe is wanting, as it is a cup. Though the 

 walls are not thick, they are very firm and close, 

 the materials being well woven. These are fibres 

 of grass-like plants, moss, a few dry leaves, flat 

 papery spiders' nests, with a little cotton or down 

 for the over-binding of the edges. It is lined 

 smoothly with fibres, I know not of what plant, 

 as slender as human hair. Another nest, similarly 

 formed, has the cavity almost filled with a mass 

 of white cotton, which looks as if thrust in by 

 man, but that those filaments of the mass that 

 are in contact with the sides, are interwoven with 



