sidered only as a summer visiter to this country, arriving in
April, and quitting it to go further south in September. It
appears to be most plentiful in the vicinity of the Lakes of
Cumberland and Westmoreland; and in some of its habits,
particularly in its mode of feeding, as also in the nature of
its food, it resembles the well-known Spotted Flycatcher ;
but with these distinctions,—that it builds in the holes of decayed
oaks or pollard trees, and, as Mr. T. C. Heysham of
Carlisle has informed me, is exceedingly noisy and clamorous
when its retreat is approached, and that it lays sometimes as
many as eight eggs.
“ In the season of 1830, a pair had a nest in the identical
hole where this species- had bred for four successive years.
On the 14th of May this nest contained eight eggs, arranged
in the following manner: one lay at the bottom, and the
remainder were all regularly placed perpendicularly round the
sides of the nest, with the smaller ends resting upon it, the
effect of which was exceedingly beautiful.'” The eggs from
different nests are found to vary greatly in size.
Its nest is a loose assemblage of roots and grass, with a
few dry leaves, dead bents, and h a ir: the eggs are eight
lines and a half long, by six lines and a half in breadth,
and of a uniform pale blue colour. The young are hatched
about the first or second week in June. Mr. Blackwall says,
that the notes of the male are varied and pleasing; and
Mr. Dovaston compares its song to that of the Redstart.
Pennant mentions one example of this bird killed near
Uxbridge in Middlesex; and I have a young male of the year
killed in September, much nearer to London. It has been
noticed in Surrey, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Northumberland,
and Durham. On the southern coast, Mr.
Blyth has seen a specimen that was shot in the Isle of
W ig h t: it has occurred also, though rarely, in Dorsetshire
and Devonshire.
From thence northward it has been noticed in Worcester-
shire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland.
In a recent Fauna of Scandinavia, this bird is included
as visiting Norway and Sweden in summer. It is a periodical
visiter in the central parts of Germany and France,
and observed to be most numerous in the latter country in
spring and autumn, when going to and returning from countries
further north. It is abundant in the southern provinces
of Europe, particularly along the coasts of the Mediterranean.
An adult male in the breeding season has the beak black,
with a spot of white over its base on the forehead; irides
dark brown ; upper part of the head and neck, including the
eyes, dark brownish black ; the back of a decided black:
wing-primaries and secondaries brownish black ; edges of the
greater wing-coverts, and the outer webs of the tertials, pure
white ; tail-feathers twelve; the outer web and part of the
inner web next the shaft of the outer and second tail-feathers,
white; the third from the outside, white on a small portion of
the outer web only; all the rest of these and the other tail-
feathers black : all the under surface of the bird to the end of
the under tail-coverts, white ; legs, toes, and claws, black.
The whole length of the bird five inches and one eighth.
From the carpal joint to the end of the longest primary three
inches and one-eighth: the first wing-feather less than half
the length of the second ; the second equal to the fifth ; the
fourth feather longer than the second ; the third, the longest
in the wing.
An adult female killed in summer, for which I am indebted
to the kindness of John Walton, Esq. of Byard’s Lodge,
near Knaresborough, who obtained it in the Valley of Desolation,
near Bolton Abbey, has the beak black, without any
white over its base ; the head, neck, back, and wing-coverts,
dark hair brown ; wing-primaries brownish black; greater
coverts and tertials edged with dull white; tail-feathers mark