118 BRITISH BIRDS 



nests are also made in holes in walls and in the trunks of trees, on 

 horizontal branches, and in a variety of situations. The nest is 

 composed of dry grass and moss, mixed with a few feathers, and 

 lined with rootlets and horsehair. Five or six eggs are laid ; they 

 are bluish white or pale green in ground-colour, clouded, blotched 

 and spotted with reddish brown. 



Flycatchers return to the same nesting-place year after year. 

 One brood only is reared, and the birds leave us by the third week 

 in September. 



Pied Flycatcher. 

 Muscicapa atricapilla. 



Upper parts and tail black; wings black, with the central 

 coverts white ; scapulars edged with white ; under parts white. 

 Female : greyish brown instead of black ; the white dingy ; the 

 three lateral tail-feathers edged with white. Length, five inches. 



The pied flycatcher is comparatively a rare bird, and is unknown 

 to a great majority of the inhabitants of this country, being re- 

 itricted to a few localities in the north of England and the south of 

 Scotland, and to some parts of North Wales, and the English 

 counties bordering on Wales. In its nesting and feeding habits, 

 and its partiality for orchards and gardens, it is like the spotted 

 flycatcher ; but it arrives earlier than that species, usually during 

 the last week in April or the first week in May. Its black-and- 

 white plumage gives it a very different and a much more attractive 

 appearance. The only other point in which the two species differ 

 greatly is in the number and colour of the eggs. Those of the pied 

 flycatcher number from five to eight, and are very beautiful, being 

 of a uniform delicate pale blue, and unspotted. 



A third species, the red-breasted flycatcher (Musicapa parva), 

 has been included in the list of stragglers from Central and Eastern 

 Europe to this country. 



Swallow. 

 Hirundo rustica. 



Forehead and throat chestnut-brown ; upper parts, sides of 

 neck, and a bar across the breast black, with violet reflections ; 

 lower parts dull reddish white. Tail long and forked. Female : 



