The Spotted Flycatcher is always a late comer, seldom appearing before the first or second week in May. Last year, however, it arrived somewhat earlier than usual, and was noticed in Norfolk, at North Runcton, on April 23, and at Barnsley on the 27th; the wind W., and the temperature about 54° with a haze and light rain. Mr. A. D. Campbell states that Flycatchers were unusually numerous at Garvoch, in Perthshire, about the 21st of May, and were first seen there on the 19th. By Aug. 27 they had all disappeared. Only one note was received of its appearance in Ireland—viz., on May 31, at Ballina, co. Mayo. Mr. Thomas Ruddy, of Palé Gardens, Llandderfel, Merionethshire, referring to this species, says that he saw the old birds in July catching bees, not only in the air, but on the hive-board. The Landrail, or Corncrake, as it is indifferently called,[125] arrived pretty generally during the last week of April, and was noticed by a great many observers on the 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th of that month. On the last-mentioned date it was observed in the county of Dublin, and on May 1st at Ballina, co. Mayo. Apparently it did not reach Scotland until a week later, for the first record of its appearance there is on May 8, at Fife. On May 14 and 15 its presence in Stirlingshire and Sutherlandshire was attested by two good observers. The scarcity of this bird in some seasons is a theme with which readers of “The Field” of late years have become tolerably familiar; but no light is thrown upon the subject, nor is any cause suggested by those from whom calendars were received. That far-famed songster, the Nightingale, whose notes are so eagerly listened for in early spring, was not heard last year before April 9; but, from causes already referred to, the first utterance of song does not always indicate the earliest arrival, and it is probable that the birds had already been some days in their favourite haunts before their welcome notes betrayed them.