SPOTTED FLYCATCHER.
Muscicapa grisola, Linn.
SPOTTED ELYCATCHEE.
MUSCICAPA GRISOLA, Linn.
Muscicapa grisola, Linn. S. N. i. p. 328 (1766); Naum. ii.
p. 216; Macg. iii. p. 518; Hewitson, i. p. 74; Yarr.
ed. 4, i. p. 220; Dresser, iii. p. 447.'
Gobe-mouche gris, French; Gefleckter Fliegenfänger, German;
Papamoscas, Spanish.
This charming bird is probably too well known to my
readers to require any lengthy description at my hands.
In every part of England with which I have any
acquaintance it is one of the most common and most
observable of our summer visitors, although of course,
as is the case with all our migratory birds, it is much
more abundant in some years than in others; I may
mention that I never remember to have noticed so many
Flycatchers in Northamptonshire as there are at the
present time (July 1893) about Lilford. One of the
most remarkable sites for a nest of this bird that has
ever come to my knowledge was a battered old hat of
the “ chimney-pot ” order that was stuck on a pea-stick
by one of our cottagers in his garden to terrify the