THE COMMONER BIRDS OF OUR GARDENS. 



441 



These birds feed exclusively on winged insects, though they have been 

 accused of eating cherries and raspberries ; and in this belief the species 

 in some parts of Kent goes by the name of the "Cherry-sucker," but they 

 are said to visit fruit trees for the sake of the flies which the ripening pro- 

 duce attracts, since, on examination of the stomachs of flycatchers killed 

 under such circumstances, no remains of the fruit were found. 



It is common in all counties of Great Britain during summer, on the 

 Continent, in Palestine, Russia, Arabia, and Africa to Cape Colony. The 

 beak is dark brown and slightly curved towards the tip. 



The flycatcher sometimes nests in the London parks. 



In autumn they are said to eat berries and in Norway they are caught 

 with mountain-ash berries. 



Growers have written me of this bird saying: " wholly beneficial"; 

 "useful in destroying aphides, gnats, and beetles" ; "have seen it with 

 caterpillars in its beak " ; "saves many a pound of hellebore for killing 

 the gooseberry sawfly caterpillars by eating the fly as it hovers about the 

 bushes." 



Macgillivray tells us he watched one summer day a pair of flycatchers 

 feed their young : they began at twenty-five minutes to four and ended 

 at ten minutes to nine, feeding their young 537 times. 



Granville Sharp describes their keen power of sight in picking up some 

 tiny creature from the grass many yards off. 



When : Anorthura troglodytes. 



This favourite and interesting little bird is resident and generally 

 distributed throughout the British Isles, and its numbers, some people 

 say, are greatly increased by autumnal immigration. It is hardy, active, 

 and strictly insectivorous, constantly picking out insects or eggs on the 

 branches ; it eats aphides and searches for wood-lice and other creatures 

 among fallen trees and at the bottom of hedges. It makes nests which 

 it does not use, perhaps to draw off attention from the real nest. It 

 lays six to nine eggs, and even twenty have been found ; two broods are 

 not uncommon in a season. 



Mr. Weir observed the young fed 278 times in the course of the day. 

 In frosty weather wrens roost together in company. The male sings 

 during the greater part of the year. 



Cuckoo : Guculus canorus. 



The cuckoo arrives about the middle of April from its winter quarters 

 in Africa (the male arriving first) and generally leaves in July or August. 

 During the season it lays from four to eight eggs which it places in 

 different birds' nests. Should the nest be inaccessible or too small to 

 enter, the cuckoo places the egg in the nest with its beak. The eggs take 

 about twelve or thirteen days to hatch. In the Natural History Museum at 

 South Kensington there is a collection of cuckoos' eggs and the eggs 

 among which they were found, showing that the eggs of individuals vary 

 greatly in colour, sometimes resembling those of the foster parent'; even 

 pale blue eggs are occasionally found, like those of the hedge-sparrow and 

 redstart, but not invariably placed in the nests of these birds. The size of 



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