BLACK REDSTART. ;337 



— a crustacean often seen running on rocks and sea-walls. 

 During the first week after their arrival they remain in 

 company but then disperse. A favourite haunt is seldom 

 without its Redstart, and should one be killed another soon 

 takes its place. Although restless and rather shy, they seem 

 to be easily trapped, and are sometimes caught with bird- 

 lime. Most of those visiting us are the young of the yeai- 

 in their brownish-grey dress, and out-number the old males, 

 with the black throat and white alar patch, by twenty to one. 

 .This I have also observed to be the case with those exposed 

 in the markets on the continent in autumn, for among the 

 many I have at difterent times seen I have detected only one 

 old male. In plumage they vary considerably. I have ob- 

 tained them with the throats black, but without any white 

 alar patch, and again, with the white pretty strongly marked 

 and not a trace of the black, but this last condition is rare, 

 and seems to me very strange, for the black almost always 

 apj^ears before the white. Old males are scarce, as already 

 said, and are very shy compared with younger males shewing 

 the black throat but no white, while these again are scarcer 

 than the young of the year. I believe that the old male 

 never loses the black throat and white alar patch when once 

 acquired ; but the autumnal plumage, being long and tipped 

 with grey, partially obscures the black throat, though adding 

 to the extent of the alar patch : the tips wearing off towai'ds 

 spring, the black throat is again revealed. Indeed, but for 

 these slight changes the old male would differ very little in 

 summer or winter. In very old birds the back is darker. I 

 have never known the Black Redstart remain to breed in this 

 neighbourhood, but an old male, which I suspect had been 

 wounded, frequented the same locality for two whole winters, 

 and I think did not leave it during the intervening summer." 

 In the adult male, the bill is black, the irides blackish- 

 brown : frontal band and lores black ; top of the head, neck 

 and back, dark bluish grey ; wing-coverts and quills greyish- 

 black, the former edged with lighter grey, the secondaries 

 and tcrtials white on the outer edges ; rump and tail-coverts 

 bay ; tail bay, tipped with blackish-brown, except the two 



VOL. I. XX 



