AMERICAN REDSTART. 



291 



The moult of the male is double, and the voice musical like that 

 of the Sylvias and Vireos, to which it is related, but sufficiently dis- 

 tinct. Nearly allied to the foreign Malurus of Vieillot, as well as to 

 the Indian Plmnicornis of Swainson, in which the brilliant colors 

 and their distribution are very similar, but in that the tail is long, 

 and unequally graduated, and the bill more robust and strongly 

 notched. The nest not pendulous, neat and somewhat artful, re- 

 sembling that of the Sylvias. This section, including several spe- 

 cies, holds probably the rank of a genus, but requires further com- 

 parison. 



AMERICAN REDSTART. 



(Muscicapa riiticilla, L. Wilson, i. p. 103. pi. 6. fig. 6. [adult male]. 

 v. p. 119. pi. 45. fig. 2. [young]. Audubon, pi. 40. [in the act of 

 attacking a nest of hornets]. Philad. Museum, No. 6C58.) 



Sp. Charact. — Black ; belly white ; sides of the breast, base of the 

 primaries and tail-feathers (the two middle ones excepted) red- 

 dish orange. — Feviale, young, and autumnal male greenish-olive ; 

 head cinereous ; beneath whitish ; sides of the breast and base of 

 the tail-feathers, yellow. 



This beautiful and curious bird takes up its summer 

 residence in almost every part of the North-American 



