THE PIED FLYCATCHER 25 
there I first heard the song of this bird. It is very seldom now that I hear a 
song that is quite new to me. If it were not that so many of our songsters sing 
all too short a time, and that when they tune up one by one for the orchestra of 
the spring season each instrument touches the ear with the fresh delight of recog- 
nition, I might feel as much at the end of my tether as the mountaineer who has 
no more peaks to climb. But this song was not only new, but wonderfully sweet 
and striking. ‘Something like a Redstart’s’ say the books, and this is not untrue, 
so far as it represents the outward form, so to speak, of the song—the quickness 
or shortness of notes, the rapid variations of pitch. But no one who has once 
accustomed his ear to the very peculiar “imére of the voice of either kind of Red- 
start will mistake for it the song of the Pied Flycatcher. My notes, taken on the 
spot, and before I had seen any other description of it, recall the song to my 
memory—the short notes at the beginning, the rather fragmentary and hesitating 
character of the strain, and the little coda or finish, which reminded me of the 
Chaffinch, but all this will have no meaning to my readers. There is but one 
way of learning a bird’s song, and that is by listening to it in solitude again and 
again, until you have associated it in your mind, with the form, and habits, and 
haunts of the singer.” 
Gitke states that the Pied Flycatcher “visits Heligoland in larger numbers 
than any of its near relatives. It is especially abundant during the autumn 
migration, returning from its nesting quarters as early as the beginning of August, 
if the weather is fine and warm, and the wind from the south or south-east.’’ 
Why this bird should migrate before scarcity of food or cold compel it to do so, 
it is difficult to understand; probably the tendency has been inherited, and points 
back to some remote period when the summers of Europe were of short duration. 
The food of this species consists largely of insects, but it rarely, if ever, 
pursues them in the air like the Spotted Flycatcher, preferring to watch from the 
end of a branch, and pounce suddenly down upon them; it is not therefore sur- 
prising that among the pellets of undigested matter ejected by this, as by other 
insectivorous birds, wing-cases of small beetles predominate; it is, however, said 
to pick flies and gnats from leaves upon which they have settled, and to eat worms. 
Later in the year, as currants, raspberries, elderberries, etc., become ripe, the Pied 
Flycatcher is said to add them to its dietary. 
Far more beautiful than its Spotted relative, and with a much better idea of 
music, it is no wonder that, where opportunity offers, this species is prized as a 
cage-bird; yet I have never seen one exhibited in England; though in Germany 
the Pied Flycatcher has put in an appearance at the exhibitions of the “Ornis” 
Society. Being so much more local in Great Britain than the Spotted Flycatcher, 
