254 MUSCICAPA 



Very tame and confiding, it is one of our best known birds. 

 It usually perches on a stick, fence, or bare bough, from whence 

 it takes short nights after passing insects, returning to the 

 same perch. It feeds on insects of various kinds, which it captures 

 chiefly on the wing, but it has been known to eat berries in the 

 autumn. Its note is a prolonged, somewhat melancholy tshee 

 several times repeated, and it has no regular song. It breeds late 

 in May or in June, placing its cup-shaped nest in a hollow tree, a 

 hole in a wall, amongst creepers, or ivy, rarely in a bush. The nest 

 is constructed of moss, rootlets, and grass-bents, lined with wool, 

 hair, or feathers, and the eggs, 4 or 5 in number, are pale blue- 

 green or sea-green with pale red or purplish red shell-markings 

 and dark surface-blotches, and measure about 07 by O56. 



378. PIED FLYCATCHER. 

 MUSCICAPA ATRICAPILLA. 



Jfusclcapa atricapilla, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 326 (1766) ; Hewitson, 

 p. 75, pi. xxi. fig. 2 ; Gould, B. of Gt. Brit. ii. pi. 17 ; Newton, 

 i. p. 229 ; Dresser, iii. p. 453, pi. 157, 158, fig. 2 ; Sharpe, Cat. 

 B. Br. Mus. iv. p. 157 ; Saunders, p. 159 ; Lilford, ii. p. 89, 

 pi. 41 ; M. luctuosa (Scop.), Ann. i. Hist. Nat. i. p. 146 (1769) ; 

 Naum. ii. p. 231, Taf. 64, figs. 2-4. 



Gole-moucke noir, French ; Cerrojillo, Span. ; Balia nera, 

 Ital. ; Schwarzjjrauer Fliegenf anger, Germ. ; Zwartgraauwe 

 Vliegenvanger, Dutch ; Broget Fhiesnapper, Dan. ; Svartochhvit 

 Flugsnappare, Swed. ; Mustankirjava-paamalintu, Finn. ; T seller - 

 nogolovaya-Mycholovka, Russ. 



( ail. (Germany). Upper part, with sides of the head and neck, wings, 

 .and tail, deep black ; a small frontal spot, a small alar speculum, broad 

 margins to the inner secondaries, the outer web of outer tail-feathers, 

 and the entire under parts pure white; bill and legs black ; iris brown. 

 Culmen 0'48, wing 3'05, tail 2'15, tarsuu 0'7 inch. In the autumn the 

 upper parts are more eooty brown in tinge, and the breast and flanks are 

 slightly washed with buff. The female has the upper parts dark hair- 

 brown, the margins to the secondaries narrower and the under parts dull 

 white. 



Hal. Europe generally, east to the Black Sea, north to the 

 Vanger and Porsanger fiords, west to the Canaries ; wintering in 

 Africa as far south as the river Gambia. It breeds also, though 

 ; somewhat locally, in England. 



