Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/138

 arrival at Selborne more than once to be so late as the 20th of May. It remains in the north of Ireland until autumn is very far advanced.

In addition to the ordinary places selected for nidification here, as trees, holes in walls, &c, I have seen a nest at the Falls, resting in part upon an aperture in a wall, and partly on the branch of a fig-tree trained against it. Garden walls, indeed, seem to be favourite sites for the nest. This is generally of careless construction, and formed of various materials, occasionally of moss, to winch is sometimes added hair, cobwebs, and feathers; the last not being always used, even as lining. An observant friend states that a nest placed against the unglazed window of an outhouse at Beechmount, was so composed of cobwebs inside and outside, that no other material was visible. Prom its choice of this fragile building substance, the spotted flycatcher is called cobweb bird in some parts of England. On the nest alluded to being approached when it contained young, the parent bird was very bold, flying angrily at the intruder, uttering shrill cries, and approaching him so near that it might almost have been struck with his hand."*

A pair of these birds is said to have built their nest on the angle of a lamp-post in one of the streets of Leeds, and brought up their young there ; f in the ornamental crown surmounting a lamp near Portland Place, London, a nest was also constructed, in which five eggs were laid and incubated. J That a pair might have had similar intentions in Belfast, was supposed on the 8th of June, 1842, when one was seen from our parlour in Donegal Square to alight on a lamp-post a few yards distant from the window, where it was soon joined by another, and both continued there for some time, making occasional sorties after flies, but still returning to the lamp-post. This site was not, however,

In Macgillivray's Brit. Birds, vol. iii. p. 522, most interesting memoranda on the number of times during one whole day that a pah - of these birds fed their young are given from the observation of Mr. Durham Weir ; who adds, that "they beat off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approach their nest."

f Atkinson's Compendium.

Jesse's Gleanings, second series, and Yarrell's Brit. Birds.