Pied Flycatcher. 125 



f anger ; in Sweden, Flug-snappare ; in Spain and Portugal, 

 Papa-moscas, etc. 



It is strange that, like the Spotted Eagle (Aquila ncevid), this 

 bird has derived its English specific name from the young bird 

 in immature plumage, when each feather is tipped with a buff- 

 coloured spot, for when it reaches the adult stage every trace of 

 the spotted plumage has disappeared. It is known in different 

 parts of the country as the ' Rafter ' or ' Beam Bird,' an appella- 

 tion it derives from the position so often chosen for its nest, the 

 end of a beam or rafter in an outhouse ; it is also called the 'Bee 

 Bird,' from its partiality for that insect, as I have often seen to 

 my vexation, when morning after morning the little marauder 

 would take his stand on a wire-fence near my bee-houses and fly 

 off to seize a luckless bee on its approach laden with honey, 

 immediately returning to his station and repeating the process 

 till his appetite was appeased. And that this is not one of the 

 popular fallacies so common about birds, but that it does occa- 

 sionally eat bees, which has been disputed by many, has been 

 verified by Mr. B. Hayward, of Easterton, who not only saw one 

 devouring several bees at the mouth of a hive, but afterwards 

 proved it beyond a doubt by dissection. It has no song, and 

 indeed no note whatever, but a feeble chirp very rarely heard at 

 the end of the season. White of Selborne calls it 'the most 

 mute and the most familiar of all our summer birds.' 



30. PIED FLYCATCHER (Muscicapa atricapilla). 



Very rare in this county, nowhere common, but not very in- 

 frequent in the Northern counties, is this handsome bird, often 

 styled, from its plumage, the 'miniature magpie/ which term, 

 indeed, sufficiently describes its black and white dress. In habits, 

 food, nesting, and absence of song it very much resembles its con- 

 gener. Mr. Hayward speaks of one killed at Lavington about the 

 year 1850. The Rev. G. Marsh possessed one killed at Ford, near 

 Chippenham, in 1837, but stated that he had never seen it alive. 

 Mr. Withers, of Devizes, killed one near that town about A.D. 1843. 

 Another was shot at Pert wood, near Mere, in May, 1872, and 



