344 MOVEMENTS OF THE REDSTART 



south even as Ecuador. From such resorts it moves probably 

 iu February, as we hear of its reaching our southern border 

 at the beginning of the following month. It does not become 

 generally distributed in this country, howbver, until some time 

 in April, becoming numerous iu the Middle districts after the 

 middle of this month, reaching New England and our northern 

 border about the first week in May, and then soon gaining the 

 limits of its northward migration. Its movements are quite 

 regular, and at the height of the season the bird is too abun- 

 dant iu all suitable localities to be overlooked. The return 

 movement is rather early, all the birds, as a rule, passing through 

 the Middle districts during the month of September. It is not 

 so common a bird, apparently, in the West as the East, and 

 the nature of the Rocky Mountain region either interferes with 

 the orderly north and south movement, or else obscures our 

 recognition of the periods of migration. It is well known to 

 occur westward into the Middle Province, but has not been 

 observed in the Pacific slopes. North, its range is probably 

 nearly coincident with the limit of large trees ; such extreme 

 of distribution does not seem to be gained until the latter part 

 of May, and its coming must be immediately followed by pairing 

 and nesting, as the eggs have been found at Fort Resolution by 

 the middle of June. While I was collecting at Pembina, on the 

 Red River of the North, latitude 49°, during the whole month 

 of June the Redstarts were very abundant in the heavy timber 

 of the river-bottom, in full song, pairing and nesting, and at 

 the height of their sexual irritability. I never saw it in Ari- 

 zona, nor have the later students of the ornithology of that 

 Territory found it, though we have advices of its occasional 

 appearance in New Mexico, and of its presence in considerable 

 numbers in Colorado and Utah, where it unquestionably breeds 

 at the higher elevations. 



In general, the breeding range may be given as rather more 

 than the northern half of the United States, and all that por- 

 tion of British America which falls within the limits of its 

 migration. It builds a neat, even an elegant nest, usually in 

 an upright crotch formed by several small twigs, like the Least 

 Flycatcher for instance, at an elevation of from five to twenty 

 or more feet from the ground. Nests which I have examined 

 varied greatly, as most birds' nests do, iu the materials of which 

 they were composed, though sufficiently similar to preserve 

 their character of small compact structures, with neatly turned 

 brim and deep cavity, about two and a half inches across out- 



