CHAPTER XV. 



THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER. 



This pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird 

 from the position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly 

 in gardens, it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of 

 a beam or piece of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or 

 gateway, the nest being, however, generally screened, and 

 often made a perfect little bit of picturesque beauty, by the 

 leaves of some lovely creeping rose, woodbine, or passion- 

 flower, which grows there. 



This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, 

 though always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond 

 of human society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Vir- 

 ginian creeper, at the back of our house. 



According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the 

 doorway, though there were some yards of verandah on either 

 hand ; but here was the convenient ledge, forming an angle 

 with the upright support; and here was placed, as in our pic- 

 ture, the small, somewhat flat nest, beautifully, though slightly, 

 put together, of dried grass and moss, lined with wool and hair. 

 Here the mother-bird laid her four or five greyish-white eggs, 

 with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared her young. 

 She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of it, 



