WARBLING FLYCATCHER, 115 



within the frame which tliey had previously made. The little creatures 

 were absent nearly an hour at a time, and returned together bringing the 

 grass, which I concluded they found at a considerable distance. Going 

 into the street to see in what direction they went, I watched them for 

 some time, and followed them as they flew from tree to tree towards the 

 river. There they stopped, and looked as if carefully watching me, on 

 which I retired to a small distance, when they resumed their journey, and 

 led me quite out of the village, to a large meadow, where stood an old hay 

 stack. They alighted on it, and in a few minutes each had selected a 

 blade of grass. Returning by the same route, they moved so slowly from 

 one tree to another, that my patience was severely tried. Two other 

 days were consumed in travelling for the same kind of grass. On the 

 seventh I saw only the female at work, using wool and horse hair. 

 The eighth was almost entirely spent by both in smoothing the inside. 

 They would enter the nest, sit in it, turn round, and press the lining, I 

 should suppose a hundred times or moi'e in the course of an hour. The 

 male had ceased to warble, and both birds exhibited great concern. They 

 went off and returned so often that I actually became quite tired of this 

 lesson in the art of nest-building, and perhaps I should not have looked' 

 at them more that day, had not the cat belonging to the house made her 

 appearance just over my head, on the roof, within a few feet of the nest,, 

 and at times so very near the affrighted and innocent creatures, that my 

 interest was at once renewed. I gave chase to grimalkin, and saved the 

 Flycatchers at least for that season. 



In the course of five days, an equal number of eggs was laid. They 

 were small, of a rather narrow oval form, white, thinly spotted with red- 

 dish-black at the larger end. The birds sat alternately, though not with 

 regularity as to time, and on the twelfth day of incubation the young 

 came out. I observed that the male would bring insects to the female, 

 and that after chopping and macerating them with her beak, she placed 

 them in the mouth of her young with a care and delicacy which were not 

 less curious than pleasing to me. Three or four days after, the male 

 fed them also, and I thought that I saw them grow every time I turned 

 from my drawing to peep at them. 



On the fifteenth day, about eight in the morning, the little birds all 

 stood on the border of the nest, and were fed as usual. They continued 

 there the remainder of the day, and about sunset re-entered the nest. 

 The old birds I had frequently observed roosted within about a foot above 



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