124 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



our ornithologists for about a hundred years. The earliest local 

 notice of this Flycatcher is furnished by ' X. Z.,' who, when 

 visiting Levens Park in 1793, found that the banks of the Kent, 

 * as far as we had yet traversed them, were frequented by the 

 Pied Flycatcher.' 1 Dovaston tells us that, in 1823, he 'saw 

 several [Pied Flycatchers] in Gowbarrow Park, Cumberland, on 

 the banks of Ulles water.' 2 



The anonymous 'G.' visited Patterdale in May 1830, and 

 there enjoyed ' a sight of that beautiful bird, the pied flycatcher 

 (Musicapa luduosa, Temm.) : it is most plentiful in the moun- 

 tainous districts of Cumberland, and is often shot in the woods 

 at Lowther.' 3 Hewitson, E. T. Booth, and other good naturalists, 

 now deceased, came to Lakeland to study this Flycatcher. It 

 was almost the only species worthy of pen and ink that Mr. J. 

 Cordeaux fell in with during a residence of three weeks in 

 Westmorland. He found a male Pied Flycatcher in the planta- 

 tations skirting the foot of Silver-how. ' A little higher up on 

 this fell side [I] found a male and female with four young ones : 

 the parent birds were hard at work catching insects for their 

 family, perched on the adjoining bushes : one little fellow was 

 bathing himself in a pool of water below the tall fern fronds, 

 seemingly deriving intense pleasure from the operation.' 4 



The fact that this Flycatcher was abundant in Levens Park, 

 in 1793, is important, because it implies that the species has since 

 changed its breeding-grounds. I searched for it at Levens all one 

 afternoon, in June 1891, without finding a trace of its presence. 

 Dr. Gough, as long ago as 1861, included the bird as a rare 

 summer visitant to Kendal, in which neighbourhood Mr. Hut- 

 chinson has seen only one nest, i.e. at Spindle wood. Dr. Hey- 

 sham was the earliest of our home naturalists to find the Pied 

 Flycatcher breeding in Westmorland. His notice of the fact is 

 unfortunately meagre : ' The pied flycatcher appears about the 

 same time as the spotted, but is not so common : they breed at 

 Lowther. On the 12th of May 1783 I shot there two pair. 

 They make their nests in the holes of trees/ The old timber 



1 Gentle-mail's Magazine, 1794, p. 112. 



2 Mag. Natural Hist., vol. v. p. 83. 3 lb. vol. iv. p. 302. 

 4 Zoologist, 1867, p. 868. 



