134 Mr. S. B. Wilson's Notes 



old) placed on the same beam. This bird generally prefers 

 newish chalets to old ones. At first we used to search all the 

 chalets alike, but soon found that searching old ones was 

 mostly time thrown away. The only nest we found that was 

 not in a chalet was in a hole in a large boulder of rock, 

 close to the little inn on the Engstlen Alp. The Black 

 Redstart certainly breeds twice a year, as we took eggs 

 between the dates of June 2nd and July 7th ; and on June 9th 

 in the spring of last year I observed eggs freslily laid, eggs 

 hard set, young just hatched, and young fully fledged and 

 ready to leave the nest, all on the same day. 



With regard to there being two distinct species, R. tithys 

 and R. cairii, Degland and Gerbe say that " the second 

 nesting of R. cairii takes place close to the eternal snow, 

 where the Alpine Accentor and the Snow Finch breed, and 

 where R. tithys is never seen,'' thus implying that R. cairii 

 and R. tithys breed in different regions. Now I observed a 

 male R. tithys, with conspicuously black breast, in the breed- 

 ing-season on the Gemmi, which does away with one supposed 

 distinction in the habits of the two species ! 



Regulus ignicapillus. "Roitelet a triple bandeau." 

 I found this bird breeding in the Jura pine-forests, when 

 searching for the nest of Chrysomitris citrinella. The nest 

 which I took is constructed almost entirely of green moss, 

 woven very closely together with hair, and bunches of feathers, 

 among them those of the Nutcracker : it contained eight 

 eggs, the pinkish colour of which renders them very easily 

 distinguishable from those of the Goldcrest. The note of 

 the Firecrest is very like that of the Goldcrest, but still 

 it is distinguishable. W^e had the pleasure of watching a 

 pair of Firecrests flitting about in a fir within a few feet 

 of us ; their motions were just the same as those of their 

 congener, but perhaps they are rather more &\\y. The Fire- 

 crest appears to be not at all uncommon in the Jura ; I also 

 met witli it in the Jura Vaudois, near Divonne. It breeds in 

 the neighbourhood of Geneva, and I saw its eggs in the col- 

 lection of my friend M. Demole, taken the year before in a 

 fir-tree in his garden in the environs of that town. 



