HIS is a familiar bird in 
almost every country and 
suburban garden, where it may 
be seen on any day in late spring 
and early summer, sitting upon 
\ a low branch, a pole, or one of 
the posts of a tennis-net, and from time to time darting into 
the air, performing one or two complicated manceuvyres, 
and then returning to its perch. On each of these little 
expeditions some flying insect such as an aphis is captured, 
and the number of victims which it destroys in the course of 
a day must be very large indeed. It is scarcely necessary 
to add that it is guilty of no corresponding mischief to be set 
off against its services. 
The nest is built on a branch of a fruit-tree—very often one 
which is trained along a wall—or on the trellis-work on the 
side of a house, and is nearly always sheltered under leaves. 
It is made of dry grass and moss, the latter predominating, 
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