THE SPOTTED FLYCATCHER 191 



before the birds more quickly than other wild berries. 

 It is local with us in its breeding habits. It is one of the 

 few species which still breed in some of our London 

 parks and the larger gardens in town. The nest may be 

 found among old creepers, but in the country it is. often 

 built on the beam of an outbuilding, and so it has been 

 called the Beam-bird. It is a charming little creature to 

 note as it sweeps round in quest of insect life. I was 

 once watching a nest in a creeper on the porch of an 

 old farmhouse. The young birds, tightly packed within, 

 gasped greedily for the food brought by their parents. 

 One had a fly too big for its swallow ; it was stuck in its 

 throat, and the fledgling graciously allowed me to push 

 it down with a pin. 



It is a charming sight to see the parent bird catch its 

 prey when on the wing, and carrying it promptly to the 

 nest within the creeper. " Not only tiny insects and 

 moths go there, but also the bodies, denuded of their 

 wings, of many a white cabbage butterfly, which w-ould 

 otherwise have deposited her small white eggs on the 

 leaves of the cauliflowers in the kitchen garden close at 

 hand. These eggs would become green grubs, which 

 w<ould injure the plants and make them unfit for food. 

 The quick eyes of the bird and his clever flight put an 

 end to the mischief so far as many a cauliflower is 

 concerned. Flies, beetles, and aphides in hosts are 

 devoured the last especially during August, when they 

 come in myriads from hop fields, or fruit trees damsons; 

 and the Flycatchers will clear the gooseberry bushes of 

 the hurtful sawfly. Macgillivray has recorded that he 

 noted a parent bird bring food to the nest five hundred 

 and thirty-seven times during one day ! Flycatchers 

 come back to the same nesting place year after year. 



