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BIRDS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. 
1888, two beautiful Waxwings — probably a pair, — mounted, and in the possession 
of Mr. W. T. Tucker, of Herrick Road, Loughborough, who told me that he shot 
them, in the autumn of 1886, in some willow-trees, close to his house, in Park 
Lane, Loughborough. 
In Rutland. — A rare winter visitant. — Lord Gainsborough tells me that 
one was seen in Stamford Fields, in 1844-5, by Mr. A. G. Elliott. Mr. R. Tryon 
saw one on Barnsdale Hill in 1877, and IMr. Horn reports several seen in April, 
1884, at Bisbrook, where a specimen was obtained. 
Family MUSCICAPIDiE. 
SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. Muscicapa grisola, Linmeus. 
“ Grey Flycatcher.” 
A summer migrant, commonly distributed, and breeding even in gardens 
close to the town of Leicester. 
Harley recorded that, in the summer of 1820, he was visiting at a house 
in the county, in the ancient porch of which there was a thick oaken door 
hung upon heavy hinges. In one of the upright door-posts there was a disused 
mortice-hole some feet from the floor, into which a bolt had probably been 
regularly shot for more than one hundred years. In this hole a Spotted Fly- 
catcher had built her nest, and, although the inmates of the house constantly 
passed and repassed the spot, the bird appeared almost devoid of fear, and in 
due time reared and brought off her brood. The Museum Donation-book records 
that Mr. W. Gimson presented “ a portion of a nest and three eggs, found in 
an old elm-tree, apparently without any external opening, on January 8th, 1853.” 
This tree was probably one cut up at the saw-mills, IMr. Gimson being a timber 
merchant. IMr. Davenport writes : — “ A Chaffinch had its nest, with five eggs, 
in a laurel-bush bordering on the lawn-tennis ground at Ashlands, in May, 
1883 ; but, being unavoidably and so frequently disturbed, forsook it. Three 
weeks later a Spotted Flycatcher appropriated the nest, laid four eggs, and 
successfully hatched off; repairing again to the same nest, she laid a second 
batch of eggs. I found three eggs of a pale-blue colour, with no markings, in 
iMay, 1879, at Skeffington.” Writing again, he says: — “In 1886 and 1887 
(just as in 1879), I found a nest both years containing four eggs each, of a 
beautiful pale-blue colour, without a speck or spot on them. This seems a 
rather favourite variety of the egg.” Every year this restless little bird haunts 
the New Walk, just in the town of Leicester, and nearly every year builds its 
nest in the ornamental stone work which embellishes the summit of the 
“ Hollings Memorial,” between the Museum and School of Art. In the summer 
of 1887 I noticed one or more pairs about there, and in August they appear 
to have nested there again. 
In Rutland. — A summer migrant, commonly distributed, and breeding. 
