BIRDS 125 



which once attracted the Pied Flycatcher to Lowther no longer 

 exists; yet, as recently as 1884, I found the species most abun- 

 dant there, as T. C. Hey sham had done fifty-five years earlier. 

 ' In some parts of Westmoreland,' he wrote in 1829, ' it [the Pied 

 Flycatcher] is very plentiful, especially in the beautiful and ex- 

 tensive woods surrounding Lowther Castle, the magnificent and 

 princely residence of the Earl of Lonsdale, where we have seen 

 it in very great numbers, and where it has bred unmolested and 

 almost unknown for years. On the contrary, we have reason to 

 think it has not resorted to the vicinity of Carlisle more than 

 five or six years, and as far as we have yet been able to ascer- 

 tain, only to one locality, where it is evidently on the increase. 

 In this situation the males generally arrive about the middle of 

 April, the females not until ten or fifteen days afterwards ; they 

 commence nidification early in May, and the young are excluded 

 a,bout the first or second week of June. We have hitherto 

 invariably found their nests in a hole of a tree, sometimes at a 

 considerable height, occasionally near the surface of the ground, 

 and for two successive years in the stump of a felled tree. In 

 texture and formation the nest is very similar to those of the 

 greater Pettychaffs, Blackcap, and Whitethroat, being only 

 slightly put together, composed almost entirely of small fibrous 

 roots and dried grass, always lined with a little hair, and gener- 

 ally a few decayed leaves on the outer side, but entirely without 

 moss. Their eggs vary in number : we have found their nests 

 with five, six, and now and then with seven ; their colour [is] 

 a pale green, and so greatly resemble[s] the eggs of the Redstart 

 that it is frequently very difficult to distinguish them unless 

 contrasted together : they are, however, far from being so 

 elegantly made, of a rounder form, and rather less, weighing 

 from 23 to 30 grains. The males, soon after their arrival, 

 should the weather be at all favourable, will frequently sit 

 for a considerable time on the decayed branch of a tree, con- 

 stantly repeating their short, little varied, although far from 

 unpleasing song, every now and then interrupted by the pursuit 

 and capture of some passing insect. Their alarm-note is not 

 very unlike the word chuck, which they commonly repeat two or 

 three times when approached, and which readily leads to their 



