PIED FLYCATCHER IN WALES. 421 



The home of the Pied Flycatcher in Wales appears to be the 

 long mountainous tract reaching from Snowdon to the Brecon 

 Beacons ; but even here it is local, and only plentiful in the high- 

 lying valleys at an elevation of from four hundred to a thousand 

 feet above sea-level. It has a liking for the proximity of a fast- 

 running, rocky stream, and the presence of old trees, especially 

 oaks on account of the nesting sites they afford by reason 

 of their holes and fissures, is a desideratum. These conditions 

 are found here and there, but generally in remote, unfrequented 

 districts. In such localities in Breconshire a diligent search 

 will often reveal the presence of this bird, and it is probable that 

 it spends the summer in many places in Central Wales unnoticed, 

 Its migratory instinct is peculiar, and for some hidden reason it 

 presses on to the mountain-side valleys to find a summer home, 

 disregarding during its long flight other apparently suitable 

 spots. A correspondent, in sending me some notes about its 

 habits in the Elan valley, Radnorshire, writes as follows : — " To 

 me it has always been a wonder how these migrants ever reach 

 localities such as I have described. This valley, for instance, is 

 practically surrounded by mountains of extensive moorland; not 

 that this fact would present any difficulty to them in itself, but 

 whence do they gain the knowledge that there are isolated spots 

 suitable to their requirements ? " 



I propose here to deal with the eight counties from which 

 this bird has been reported, commencing with the north. 



Denbighshire. — A pair nested at Hendre House in 1843-4 

 (Annals and Mag. Nat. History, 1845). The fact of its nesting 

 in the county was also recorded in ' The Field' in 1871. 



Merionethshire. — In 1872, and in previous years, it nested 

 at Llandderfel (Harting's ' Our Summer Migrants '). Mr. F. H. 

 Birley, in 1885, found it by no means rare about two miles south 

 of Cader Idris, and discovered six of its nests (' The Zoologist,' 

 1886, p. 75). Mr. A. B. Priestley, writing from Cae Ddafydd, 

 in the north-west of the county, informs me that "Pied Fly- 

 catchers are quite common here now ; in saying this I mean that 

 they are of more or less recent introduction to one's notice here* 

 I question if I saw many of them much before 1870; after that 

 date they have become commoner every year I think, and we 

 have now annually considerable numbers of them in the breeding 

 season." Mr. F. C. Rawlings, of Barmouth, has informed me 



