74 SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 
Another couple placed theirs in a tree immediately 
over an entrance door, which, whenever it was opened, 
caused them to fly off; another pair on the angle of 
a lamp-post in Leeds; and another on the ornamental 
crown of one in London. Another pair placed theirs 
on the end of a garden rake; another in a cage 
hung up in a tree, the door having been left open; 
and another in a stove, which seemed to be made “too 
hot to hold them” when the thermometer in the hot- 
house rose above 72°, for the bird used then to quit 
the eggs, and only returned to them again when it 
fell below that point; disliking, it would seem, the 
‘Patent incubator.’ Trees are also built in, ledges of 
rocks, holes in walls, the exposed roots of trees over 
a bank, the side of a faggot stack, or a beam in an 
out-building, whence perhaps another of its provincial 
names—the ‘Beam Bird.’ One pair made their nest 
on the hinge of an out-house door, in a village where 
people were continually passing and repassing. 
Two broods are not uncommonly reared in a year, 
the first being hatched in June: but the second may 
be only the consequence of the first one having been 
destroyed. 
The eggs, four or five in number, are greyish or 
greenish white, spotted with pale orange-coloured brown; 
in some the broad end is blotted with grey red. After 
the young have quitted the nest they are very sedulously 
attended by their parents. 
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