128 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



required for the National Collection. It was really difficult to 

 choose a suitable tree. The choice of our party rested eventually 

 with a small birch, and then the eggs had to be watched until 

 they hatched out on the 11th of June. A week later the nest- 

 lings proved to be fairly feathered ; when we came to saw the 

 tree in two, the stronger chicks tried to fly. The odd thing 

 was that the old Flycatchers proved to be rearing a little Red- 

 start with their own brood. As Heysham has remarked, Red- 

 starts and Pied Flycatchers (as also Blue Tits) often nest in 

 similar holes, and the second party to arrive sometimes evicts the 

 rightful owner, and incubates her own eggs together with those 

 of the evicted tenant. Whilst this nest was being secured, the 

 old birds incessantly uttered their alarm-notes, that of the male 

 suggesting the sound produced by two pebbles being knocked 

 together. Their young proved upon dissection to have been fed 

 on caterpillars and small beetles. In 1887 Mr. W. Duckworth 

 spent several consecutive hours in watching a pair of Pied Fly- 

 catchers feeding their young. He found that they visited the 

 nestlings thirteen times in thirty minutes, the female making 

 nine visits to the male bird's four visits. ' By keeping very 

 quiet,' he wrote, ' and moving slowly, I got to within four or five 

 yards of the nest. The male and female have two quite distinct 

 alarm-notes. That of the male is exactly like the tit-a-tit of the 

 male Redstart (when it has young), but is not quite so loud. 

 The note, of the female is identical with the wit-wit of the 

 Chaffinch.' The actions of the old birds are at all times sylph- 

 like and graceful ; the males sway their tails amorously when in 

 full song. One of the nests that I examined on the 1st of June 

 1889 (and which had been occupied the year previous), was in 

 the stem of an ash -tree, containing three chipped eggs and three 

 newly hatched young. Animated by anxiety for the safety of 

 their progeny, the old birds hovered round with much solicitude, 

 flitting restlessly from spray to spray, calling incessantly, shuf- 

 fling their wings and jerking their tails. When I withdrew, the 

 male flew off, but soon returned with a caterpillar which he 

 carried to the nest, to the orifice of which both birds made 

 frequent visits, clinging tenaciously with their claws to the bark 

 around the nest. 



