Spotted flycatchers have not been as common with us lately as they were at one time, when they always made their home here during their summer visit to this country, and were constantly in evidence. We have not had a nest for several years, and last year (1911) I did not see a single flycatcher in the garden, but this year, I am glad to say, they have come back again and there has been a nest in the ivy on the house wall. It was placed so low down that we could easily look into it, but never once did I surprise the old bird; she seemed to hear one's footsteps at a distance, and long before one reached the nest she was off. The young were hatched on June 29th, but their eyes did not open until July 6th. Whilst they were blind and as they grew bigger the nest seemed much too small for them, and often one fancied two of them must inevitably have been smothered, as they were quite hidden under the other three. Even after they could see there was some confusion during the heat of the day; but it was one of the prettiest sights imaginable when they were tucked in for the night; all five heads with their sharp little beaks and bright black eyes were arranged in perfect order, all looking together in the same direction out of the nest. People in the village call these birds by the name of "old man," and it seems expressive, somehow peculiarly appropriate to their greyish colouring and quiet unobtrusive manners. For five years running a pair of flycatchers built in a fork of a thick ivy-stem on the old church tower. They chose a most exposed place by the side of a walk trodden by dozens of visitors to the church nearly every day of the summer. The first time we noticed it (in 1894) the nest was so low and so exposed that nothing could save it. In 1895, when it was placed higher up and better concealed, the young were successfully reared. In 1896 they chose a position actually not more than three feet from the ground, and yet, marvellous to relate, owing to watchful care on the part of human friends, and the continual replacing of a screen of ivy leaves, they scored another success. In 1897, though the site was higher up and apparently much safer, the young birds were taken, but in 1898 they were again able to escape the attentions of cats and boys and bring off their brood without mishap; in 1899 they wisely abandoned the dangerous situation altogether. I was once watching a flycatcher perched on the food-stand opposite and close to my open window, when I noticed that besides a constantly-repeated weak single note, it had every now and then a cadence of two and again of three notes, and sometimes a very faint kind of inward warble.