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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Isles ; it reaches us about the middle of April (the male arriving first), and 

 remains with us until the beginning of September. Its noisy chatter 

 often brings it to our notice, for this bird seems to live in a perpetual 

 state of excitement. It visits the gardens in company with its young and 

 pilfers currants, raspberries, and other ripe fruit. It creates great havoc 

 among peas, and Miss Peggy Whitethroat is fond of sweet cherries, grapes, 

 and figs. It partly compensates for its offences by eating large numbers 

 of Daddy Longlegs in summer, also caterpillars and other insects. 



The Lesser Whitethroat and Garden Warbler are offenders in eating 

 ripe raspberries, but they are otherwise insectivorous. 



Redstart : Ruticilla phoenicurus. 



The redstart is not a common summer visitor, but should be en- 

 couraged : it eats worms, beetles and their grubs, flies, spiders, ants and 

 their eggs, fruit, and berries. Mr. F. V. Theobald tells me the redstart is 

 unfortunately often caught in rat-gins in hedges. 



Jackdaw : Corvus monedula. 



The jackdaw is a close companion of the rook, especially in winter. It 

 eats wireworms, leather-jackets and chafer-grubs, and in this it is very 

 useful, but in some districts it is too numerous, as it will clear cherries and 

 walnuts from the trees. It clears nests of small birds of their eggs and 

 young, and destroys the eggs of game and poultry, and the young of both. 

 It is also very destructive to peas and grain crops where very numerous. 

 Otherwise it is an interesting and attractive bird. Mr. Wilmott Yates, of 

 Walton, Hants, wrote me that in May 1906 he shot a male jackdaw 

 taking food to the hen which was sitting ; to his surprise he found that 

 the beak contained thirteen wireworms, four grubs, and a few other 

 insects. 



Spotted Flycatcher : Muscicapa grisola. 



Yarrell says of this bird that it is one the latest, yet one of the most 

 regular of our summer visitors, reaching us about May 20, when oak 

 leaves are partially expanded ; it begins its nest almost immediately on 

 its arrival. It frequents woods, orchards, gardens, and lawns. The same 

 birds will return and occupy the same spot for several years in succession. 



It is also called the tt Beam bird," as it sometimes builds on a beam in 

 an out-house. It is believed the female builds the nest ; the male collects 

 and brings her the required material. It lays four to five eggs, and two 

 broods are sometimes reared in a season. White says the female, while- 

 sitting on the eggs, is fed by the male even as late as nine o'clock at 

 night. This bird has no power of voice beyond a harsh call note. 



The young are hatched about the second week in June. When able to 

 leave the nest they follow the parent birds, who feed them until they can 

 catch insects for themselves. When on the look-out for food they 

 generally take their stand on the top of a post, or the upper bar of a flight 

 of rails, or the extreme end of a branch of a tree, whence they dart off on 

 the approach of an insect, catching it with ease by a short and rapid move- 

 ment, returning frequently to the same spot they had quitted, to be on 

 the look-out as before. 



