AXD ^NEIGHBOURHOOD. 81 



garden, such as he had never seen before, and began 

 to attack his peas. I at once thought that these 

 AYonderful birds must be Hawfinches, which have only 

 of late years become common with us, and are great 

 devourers of green peas, but my informant went on 

 to state that to frighten these and other winged 

 depredators, he had stuck up a battered old hat on a 

 stick, and in said hat these unknown birds had 

 immediately built a nest and laid their eggs. I then 

 guessed what they were, and, pointing out a Spotted 

 Flycatcher on a dead bough within a few yards of us, 

 asked if that was anything like these builders in the 

 hat. " Why, bless me, so it is ! " was the answer, 

 evidently given with genuine astonishment, though 

 this Flycatcher is one of our most common, and, 

 with the exception of the Swallow tribe, quite the 

 most observable of our summer birds. I need 

 hardly say that the propensity for peas was purely 

 imaginary. 



I think that this species generally rears two broods, 

 as I have often met with young birds in the nest late 

 in August. I once, and only once, met with a 

 Cuckoo's eg^ in a Spotted Flycatcher's nest. The 

 same nesting-site is chosen year after year, but the 

 old nest is seldom even partially used. All sorts of 

 curious situations are selected by these birds, but on 

 the whole I should say the favourite nesting-places 

 are creepers, such as ivy, honeysuckle, &c., or the 

 boughs of fruit-trees fastened to a garden wall. The 

 young birds are fed by the old ones for some time 

 after they leave the nest, and all take their departure 

 about the second week in September. In the summer 

 of 1889 a pair of Flycatchers made a nest and reared 



G 



