BLACK REDSTART 



471 



lined with feathers and hair, which is usuall)' placed in a chink in an 

 old building or wall, but sometimes in a hole in a tree. 



Blaek Redstart ^^ seems strange that a bird like the black redstart 

 (Ruticilla titvs) ^^^^ PJiccniciirus titys of some authors), whose breed- 

 ing-range includes southern and central Europe, 

 and does not extend farther north than the lower part of Denmark, 

 should be exclusively a winter-visitor to the British Isles, yet such is 

 the case. The male differs from the cock of the ordinary redstart in 

 that the forehead is black, as well as by the presence of a large white 

 patch on the wing formed by the outer webs of the secondary quills, 

 and also by the bluish -grey 

 upper-parts ; the sides of the 

 head and throat are black, 

 and the breast and flanks 

 sooty grey, passing on the 

 abdomen into slaty grey, 

 which gradually lightens to- 

 wards the posterior end of 

 the body. The hen differs 

 from the corresponding sex 

 in the ordinary redstart by 



her somewhat darker colour, and b)- the under wing- coverts being 

 grey instead of buff. 



Wintering in north-east Africa, this redstart regularly visits the 

 British Isles during the cold season ; as might be expected, it is, how- 

 ever, commoner in the southern counties of England than elsewhere, 

 although it appears occasionally in Scotland, as it also does in Iceland 

 and the Faroes. In Ireland its appearances are very irregular, and 

 mainly confined to the coast. A dead specimen was picked up in 

 Orkney in November 1905. The black redstart is much more of a 

 domestic bird than its cousin, generally taking up its quarters near 

 dwellings, and displaying many of the traits of the redbreast. 



BLACK REDSTART. 



Wheateap 

 (Saxicola 

 oenanthe). 



The wheatear, which is the typical representative of 

 a genus with nearly fifty species, ranging over the 

 greater part of the Old World (exclusive of the 

 Malay countries and Australasia), and also occurring 

 in Greenland, eastern North America, and Alaska, takes its name from 

 a corruption of a term signifying " white-rump." The species may, 

 indeed, be recognised at all ages by the white upper tail-coverts and 



