From its conspicuous black and white plumage, the Pied Flycatcher is a much more attractive species than the commoner bird. Strange to say, although of similar habits, and living on similar food, it is by no means so common as a species, nor so generally dispersed. Its presence in Scotland is always looked upon as an uncommon occurrence, and in Ireland, until recently, it was quite unknown.

During the month of April, 1875, Mr. Robert Warren, jun., of Moyview, Ballina, co. Mayo, met with this bird for the first time in his neighbourhood, and the following communication from him on the subject was published in the natural history columns of “The Field,” on the 1st of May, 1875:—“It may interest some of your ornithological readers to learn that a Pied Flycatcher (Muscicapa atricapilla) visited this extreme western locality on the 18th of April. My attention was first attracted by seeing it catching insects in the true flycatcher style; but, thinking it rather strange that our common Spotted Flycatcher should appear a month or six weeks earlier than usual, I watched it attentively for some time. It then struck me as having a smaller head and closer plumage than the spotted one, and occasionally I thought I observed some white marks on the wings; but, the evening light just fading, I could not be quite certain of the white marks. Although knowing it to be a flycatcher, I was not satisfied as to its identity, so next morning I returned to that part of my lawn where I had seen it the night before, and again saw it hard at work; but now having better light, and the aid of a field glass, I was not long in making out quite distinctly the white wing marks, which showed me that it was not the common Muscicapa grisola. I took my gun and secured what I believe to be the first specimen of Muscicapa atricapilla ever shot in Ireland. Neither Thompson in his ‘Birds of Ireland,’ nor Professor Newton in his new edition of ‘Yarrell’s British Birds,’ mentions it as a visitor to Ireland, or gives any record of its capture in this island; and Mr. Harting, in his ‘Handbook of British Birds,’ p. 10, says it is unknown in Ireland. The specimen, an adult female, is now in the collection of the Royal Dublin Society.”

To this communication the editor appended the following note:—“Although we always regret to hear of the wanton destruction of a rare bird, we must admit that circumstances sometimes occur to justify an individual capture, and we think the present instance is a case in point. By the actual possession of the bird seen, Mr. Warren has been enabled to establish beyond doubt the fact of the occurrence in Ireland of a species previously unknown there, and has thus a complete answer to any sceptic who might suggest that he may have been mistaken in his identification of it.”

In England the Pied Flycatcher is a regular summer migrant, quite as much as any other of the small birds already noticed. Mr. A. G. More, in his “Notes on the Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the Nesting Season,” regards it as a very local species, and observes that the nest has occasionally been found in North Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Isle of Wight, Surrey, Oxford, Norfolk, Gloucester, Shropshire, Leicester, and Derby. To these counties I may add Middlesex (for I have known several instances of this bird nesting as near London as at Hampstead, Highgate, and Harrow) and Essex, where the species has been met with at Leytonstone. Yarrell adds Sussex, Suffolk, Yorkshire (where I also have seen it), Worcester, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Durham, and on the southern coast, Hampshire. He makes no mention of its occurrence in Wales, neither does Mr. A. G. More in his essay above mentioned. During the summer of 1871, however, several letters appeared in the natural history columns of “The Field,” communicating the fact of its nesting in Breconshire, Denbighshire, and Merionethshire.[54] The sites selected for the nests are usually holes in walls, ruins, and pollard trees, and the nest itself is composed of roots, grass, strips of inside bark and horsehair. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a very pale blue colour, much paler, smaller, and rounder than those of the hedge sparrow. A correspondent who has taken several nests of this bird states that he never found one containing feathers; but I think I have seen one lined with feathers which had been taken out of an old birch tree in Lapland by the late Mr. H. Wheelwright. In this lamented naturalist’s entertaining book, “A Spring and Summer in Lapland,” he states that, although he never met with the Pied Flycatcher on the fells, it was to be found as far north as the birch region extends, and he generally found the nest in small dead birch stubbs by the riverside. Messrs. Godman met with it some way up the mountains to the north of BodÖ in Norway, where the birch was also the favourite nesting tree. As it is common in most parts of Central and Southern Europe, and is found as far westward as Portugal, it is rather curious that Professor Savi should have so long overlooked its occurrence in Tuscany. Dr. Giglioli noticed it as abundant at Pisa in April, and, on recording it as new to the Tuscan avifauna, he added (“Ibis,” 1865, p. 56): “When I showed the numerous specimens I had procured to Professor Savi, he was much surprised, and said that, during the forty years he had been studying the ornis of this part of Italy, he had never come across the Pied Flycatcher, which, however, abounds during the spring passage at Genoa, and all along the Riviera.” It is a spring and autumn visitor in Malta; but, though often seen in the valleys and by roadsides in the neighbourhood of trees, it is not so numerous in the island as M. grisola. Mr. O. Salvin found the Pied Flycatcher not uncommon about Souk Harras in the Eastern Atlas, and Mr. Tyrrwhitt Drake saw it during the spring migration in Tangier and Eastern Morocco. A specimen from the River Gambia is in the collection of Mr. R. B. Sharpe. Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., during a recent tour in Algeria, encountered this amongst other familiar birds. He says (“Ibis,” 1871, p. 76): “It was not until April that I saw this species, after which it became common. In the dayats and in the Gardaia, where they most abounded, the proportion of adult males in full summer plumage to young birds and females was as one to five. They looked exceedingly picturesque in the rich foliage of the oases, clinging perhaps to a rough palm stem, though their more usual perch was the upper bough of a bush, whence they would dart off after passing flies.” To this I may add that the note frequently repeated is not unlike that of the Redstart, although softer and more agreeable, and the bird when uttering it often shuffles its wings after the manner of a Hedge Sparrow. Canon Tristram found this bird to be a summer resident in Palestine, and first noticed it in Galilee on April 23rd; but, though remaining to breed, he considered it rather a scarce bird there.

An allied species, Muscicapa albicollis, is generally distributed over the South of Europe, Palestine, and North Africa, which differs from the Pied Flycatcher in having the nape of the neck white instead of black; in other words, the white of the throat extends entirely round the neck. It is found in Greece, Turkey, Tuscany, Spain, Portugal, and France, less commonly in the north of France, and not in Belgium or Holland. It is singular, considering that the two species occupy the same haunts during a great portion of the year, that the White-necked Flycatcher never accompanies its more sable congener to England; yet, so far as I am aware, there is no instance of its occurrence here on record.

What is the cause which operates to restrain one species from migrating, when a closely allied bird of similar habits is impelled to take a long and perilous journey? Truly it is a curious question.

Before taking leave of our British flycatchers, it may be observed that a third species, the Red-breasted Flycatcher (Muscicapa parva), a native of South-eastern Europe and Western Asia, has been met with and procured on three separate occasions in Cornwall. One was taken at Constantine, near Falmouth, on Jan. 24, 1863.[55] A second was captured at Scilly in October of the same year;[56] and a third was procured also at Scilly on Nov. 5, 1865.[57] All the specimens procured were immature. The adult bird has a breast like a robin, which renders it a particularly attractive species. It is said to be not uncommon in the Crimea and in Hungary, extending eastward to Western and North-western India, where it is plentiful,[58] and is found accidentally in Italy, Switzerland, and France. Mr. Howard Saunders has reason to believe that it has been met with in Southern Spain in winter, but Col. Irby is somewhat sceptical on the point.[59]

In Sir Oswald Mosely’s “Natural History of Tutbury” (p. 385), it is reported that a pair of the North American Red-eyed Flycatcher (Muscicapa olivacea) appeared at Chellaston, near Derby, in May, 1859, and one of them was shot. If there was no mistake in the identification of the species, one can only suppose that the birds must have been brought over to this country in a cage, and contrived to effect their escape.