PIED FLYCATCHER. 375 



the hazel, and fibres, the interior lined with thin straws and wool; eggs 

 thickly spotted with brown." 1 



Dr. Stanley, of Whitehaven, seems to have investigated the habits 

 of this bird with care and accuracy. " We cannot find," he says, " a 

 single well-authenticated fact of its having- been met with in this 

 country during- the winter season ; indeed, all the testimony upon which 

 any reliance can be placed, is decidedly ag-ainst the supposition that it 

 is indig-enous, and tends strongly to prove that it is only a summer 

 bird of passage. For instance, Mr. Bolton, in his Harmonia Ruralis, 

 says that it visits the West Riding- of Yorkshire, and departs with its 

 young in September. The Rev. Mr. Dalton, of Copgrove, (also in the 

 West^Riding of Yorkshire,) states that he has frequently seen it about 

 his house in the summer, but does not recollect ever to have noticed it 

 in the winter. Dr. Heysham, in his Catalogue of Cumberland Ani- 

 mals, observes that the Pied Flycatcher appears about the same time as 

 the Spotted, but is not so common ; and for the last three years we 

 have noticed it regularly during the spring and summer, in Cumber- 

 land, but as yet have never been able to see, hear of, or procure a 

 single specimen in the winter, notwithstanding we have repeatedly 

 searched for it in all the winter months, during the above period ; nor 

 can we find, from the inquiries we have made, that it has ever been 

 seen, at this season of the year, in those parts of Westmoreland where 

 it constantly resorts in great numbers." 



The migration of this species appears to be principally confined to 

 the northern counties, as it is seldom observed beyond Yorkshire, and 

 rarely seen in the south of England, although it has occasionally been 

 met with in Norfolk, Suffolk, Middlesex, Surrey, and Dorsetshire ; 

 and Mr. Graves, in his British Ornithology, states, that in the summer 

 of 1812 he found a nest of this bird, with young, at Peckham, in 

 Surrey. In some parts of Westmoreland it is very plentiful, especially 

 in the beautiful and extensive 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 ascertain, only to one 

 locality, where it is evidently upon the increase. 



In this situation the males generally arrive about the middle of 

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



] Mag. of Nat. Hist. i. 394. 



