Insects. 8967 
The redeyed flycatcher feeds chiefly upon insects, but varies its diet 
with ripe berries of several kinds. This mixed diet indicates the 
Species at present under consideration to be more nearly related to 
our warblers than to the gray or pied flycatcher of Britain. The 
two last-mentioned species are purely insectivorous in their habits, 
but most of our warblers will commit depredations upon our currant 
trees and strawberry-beds. The redeyed flycatcher is said to build a 
pretty nest, composed of dried grass and leaves, mixed with lichens, 
insect cocoons, spiders’ nests, cotton, bits of paper, fragments of 
hornets’ nests, and any odd thing it can lay hold of, lining it with 
vegetable fibres, and suspending it firmly between two twigs. The 
eggs are three, four, or five in number, and are of a clear white, 
dotted with a few minute spots of reddish brown about the larger 
end. 
My specimen measures five and a half inches long. The top of 
the head is smoky gray, vanishing as it were on each side into narrow 
stripes of smoky black, beneath which and over the eyes are broad 
streaks of ashy white. The sides of the neck, the back, the wings 
and tail are olive-green; the inner portions of the wing and tail- 
feathers brownish black ; the chin, throat and belly white. The bill, 
as Wilson remarks, “is longer than usual with birds of its tribe, the 
upper mandible overhanging the lower considerably, and notched, 
dusky above and light-blue below.” The legs and feet are bluish, 
and irides red. 
It may give a good general notion of the appearance of the bird to 
say that at first sight it appears to partake of the characters of the 
sedge and garden warblers. 
Breeding of Varieties, §-c.—There have of late years been such extravagant theories 
broached on this somewhat vexed question, that it is quite refreshing to read the 
observations of Mr. Greening (Zool. 8905), and he cannot, I think, fail in carrying the 
more sober-minded naturalists with him where he says, “I have little doubt we shall 
find that Nature always resumes her course.” This has been my impression, not to 
say conviction, for years. There is, I think, the same tendency in mixed breeds; for 
instance, at my native place, Bonchurch, tame rabbits were occasionally turned out 
among the wild ones, with which they associated and bred, gradually assuming the 
grayish brown coat, and assimilating in habits to the wild species. In after years 
none of varied colours were to be met with. The feathered tribe is no exception; the 
rock doves, for instance, frequenting the caves and cliffs of the northern coast of Scot- 
land, are often found to be of a mixed breed, in a transition state, and doubtless will 
eventually return to the original stock. European dogs in the East soon degenerate, 
