326 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
with lighter brown ; throat, chest, and sides of body suffused 
with yellowish-buff, the abdomen and under tail-coverts white. 
Total length, 4-9 inches; wings, 2 6. 
Young.— Mottled all over, the upper surface being ochraceous- 
buff, with dusky brown edges to the feathers ; upper wing- 
coverts with ochraceous tips ; under surface light ochraceous- 
buff, with dusky tips to the feathers. 
Range in Great Britain.— An occasional visitor, having been 
captured near Falmouth, in the Scilly Islands, in Norfolk, 
Yorkshire, Berwickshire, and once in co. Kerry, Ireland. 
Range outside the British Islands. — The breeding home of the 
Red-breasted Flycatcher extends from Central Europe as far 
east as Turkestan, and, it is said, to Lake Baikal. Many writers, 
however, have confounded it with the eastern Red-breasted 
Flycatcher ( Siphia albicilla), which breeds in Eastern Siberia 
and Northern China, and wanders south in winter to Southern 
China and the Burmese countries, reaching in the Indian 
Peninsula to Nepal and the neighbourhood of Dinapore in the 
plains. On the other hand, S. parva is a western bird, occu- 
pying in winter the western and central districts of India, 
coalescing with the range ot A. albicilla in Eastern Bengal, but 
extending south to Mysore and the Nilghiris. In Europe it 
breeds in the Baltic Provinces and the St. Petersburg district, 
and has been met with as a straggler in other parts of Europe,' 
having occurred in South Sweden, Denmark, Heligoland, the 
south-east of France, and Mr. Howard Saunders believes 
that it visits the south-west of Spain occasionally. To the 
Mediterranean countries, however, it is principally known as 
a winter visitor. 
Habits. — Although this little species has more in common 
with the Spotted Flycatcher than the Pied Flycatcher, Mr. 
Seebohm describes its habits as differing from those of’ both 
the last-mentioned birds. He says that they reminded him 
both of a Flycatcher and a Tit, as he saw it catching insects 
on the wing with ease, and also fluttering before the trunk of 
a tree to pick an insect off the bark. The song was unobtru- 
sive, something between the notes of a Robin and a Redstart. 
“ The alarm-note was a ‘pink, pink, pink' something like the 
spink of a Chaffinch, but softer, clearer, and quicker/’ 
