Il8 BRITISH BIRDS. 



The Flycatcher, of all our summer birds, is the 

 most mute. It visits this island in the spring, and 

 disappears in September. The female builds her 

 nest commonly in gardens, on any projecting stone 

 in a wall, or on the end of a beam, screened by the 

 leaves of a vine, sweet-briar, or woodbine, and 

 sometimes close to the post of a door, where people 

 are going in and out all day long. The nest is 

 rather carelessly made; it is composed chiefly of 

 moss and dried grass, mixed in the inside with 

 some wool, and a few hairs. She lays four or five 

 eggs, of a dull white, closely spotted and blotched 

 with rusty red. This bird feeds on insects, for 

 which it sits watching on a branch or on a post, 

 suddenly dropping down upon them, and catching 

 them on the wing, and immediately rising, returns 

 again to its station to wait for more. After the 

 young have quitted the nest, the parent birds fol- 

 low them from tree to tree, and watch them with 

 the most sedulous attention. They feed them with 

 the flies which flutter among the boughs beneath; 

 or pursuing their insect prey, with a quick irre- 

 gular kind of flight, like that of a butterfly, to a 

 greater distance, they immediately return as before 

 described. 



