VOL. XI. | NOTES. 87 
CURIOUS NESTING SITES OF SPOTTED 
FLYCATCHER. 
In June 1916 I saw a nest of the Spotted Flycatcher 
(Muscicapa s. striata) built almost on the end of a branch of 
a cedar and some ten feet from the ground. The nest held 
five eggs and a brood was reared. I have often seen nests 
flat on branches and well away from a trunk, but never in 
such a swaying position as this one was. 
Flycatchers seem to have quite a liking for using old nests 
for a foundation, and at the present time I have three under 
observation which are built in nests of Robin, Blackbird 
and Pied Wagtail, and which have already had broods reared 
in them by their builders this year. I have also seen an old 
Chaffinch’s nest in a small standard fruit tree used by 
Flycatchers quite soon after the Chaffinches had flown. 
J. H. Owen. 
THE habit of building upon nests of other species of birds is 
sufficiently common in the case of the Spotted Flycatcher to 
deserve fuller notice than the brief reference to a single case 
in Saunders’s Manual (2nd Edit. p. 158). 
Mr. H. 8. Davenport has recorded the use of a Hawfinch’s 
nest containing eggs as the site of a Spotted Flycatcher’s nest 
(Field, July 7, 1900), and Mr. O. V. Aplin mentions two 
instances of the use of a Goldfinch’s nest (Zool. 1906, p. 448 
and 1907, p. 324). Greenfinch’s nests are recorded by Miss 
E. L. Turner (Brit. Bird Book, I1., p. 267) and myself. Besides 
the case mentioned by Mr. J. H. Owen, Mr. H. 8. Davenport 
mentions another occasion on which a Chaffinch’s nest was 
used (Victoria Hist. of Leicester, 1., p. 125), one is also referred 
to by Miss E. L. Turner (Brit. Bird Book; II., p. 267), and 
Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown actually records a Flycatcher’s nest 
built on the top of an occupied Chaffinch’s nest, from both 
of which young were reared! (Vert. Fauna of Tay, p. 106). 
The nest of the Song-Thrush has been utilized on a good many 
occasions, and cases are on record in the Birds of Essex, 
p 108, the Fauna of Lakeland, p. 123, the Brit. Bird Book, 
II., p. 267, the Vertebrate Fauna of Cheshire, 1., p. 184, the 
Victoria History of Yorkshire, 1., p. 329, and the Birds of 
Ireland, p. 47, while other instances have been recorded from 
Derbyshire by Mr. A. Cox (Field, Sept. 1, 1900), and from 
Wales by Mr. J. Walpole Bond. 
In Brit. Birds, X., p. 117, Captain W. M. Congreve mentions 
a case in which a Mistle-Thrush’s nest was adapted, and Mr. 
O. Grabham refers to another instance in which an old nest 
of this species was used yearly (Vict. Hist. of Yorkshire, I. 
