324 BRITISH BIRDS. 



season. In Africa the Spotted Flycatcher is found as far south as Cape 

 colony, in some parts, both of the north and south of the continent, being 

 said to be a resident or partially migratory species. It is apparently a 

 rare bird in Egypt, but common in Algeria, where it occurs on passage, a 

 few remaining to breed. We have no record of this species from any of 

 the Atlantic islands off the coasts of this continent. In China southwards 

 to the Philippines and the Moluccas the Spotted Flycatcher is represented 

 by a nearly allied form, the Muscicapa griseisticta of Swinhoe, differing in 

 being slightly smaller, in being browner above, more broadly streaked on 

 the breast, and with a shorter tail. In Eastern Siberia it is represented 

 by two other nearly allied species, M. latirostris and M. sibirica. In the 

 valley of the Angora the range of the Spotted Flycatcher overlaps that 

 of its eastern representatives. M. sibirica has much darker underparts; 

 M. latirostris is without the spots on the breast ; and both are much smaller 

 birds than M. grisola. Sharpe, in his ' Catalogue of the Birds in the 

 British Museura,^ vol. iv., places these three species in three different 

 genera, the characters of which chiefly depend on the form of the bill. 

 This group of birds appears to me to be one in which the general style of 

 coloration is of much greater generic value than slight differences in the 

 shape of the bill. 



The Spotted Flycatcher rarely arrives in its summer haunts in Great 

 Britain before the first or second week in May, generally not until the oak 

 trees are partially in leaf, and the season affords abundance of insect food. 

 It frequents the well-cultivated districts, and delights to haunt the borders 

 of woods and well-timbered parks. It is also found commonly in gardens 

 and pleasure-grounds and in orchards, often on the wooded banks of 

 streams and ponds, and, more rarely, attaching itself to some small clump 

 of trees in the centre of pastures, on whose long, drooping boughs it sits 

 and ever and anon sallies forth to catch the passing insects. Gifted with 

 no great powers of song, and exceedingly sober and chaste of dress, this 

 little bird is very often passed unnoticed, unless its oft-repeated call-notes 

 arrest the attention of the passer-by. Here, in his favourite haunts, 

 you will most frequently observe him sitting upright and motionless on 

 some favourite perch, either on a stake or iron fence, haystack, or long 

 bare branch, watching intently the clouds of insects playing round him. 

 As the flies come near he sallies out repeatedly and, fluttering in the air, 

 secures them with a sharp snap of his bill, returning quickly and silently 

 to his perch again to sit motionless as before. If it be in autumn, 

 his mate and brood will be near him — perhaps all sitting in a row on a 

 convenient fence, the parent birds catching insects and feeding their 

 young. Spotted Flycatchers are often seen hovering in airy flight over 

 the meadow-grass, every now and then alighting to secure the small 

 insects and beetles lurking on the stems of the herbage. They will some- 



