The Redstart 



203 



have often found the nest, is between a small branch, little more than a twig, 

 and the main stem of the tree, often as much as three inches in diameter. In 

 such positions the nests were frequently in plain view — after they were once 

 discovered. Sometimes, however, the nest is so well hidden that it may be 

 discovered only after a most careful and prolonged search. 



The four or live eggs are white, variously blotched and spotted with brown 

 and gray, thus resembling those of the yellow, or summer. Warbler. They 

 measure about sixty-live hundredths of an inch long by fifty hundredths wide. 



A MOTHER REDSTART AND HER NEST 



Last spring it became apparent that a pair of Redstarts had a nest hidden 

 somewhere within the recesses of a certain limited growth of saplings near our 

 summer camp on Lake Champlain. Spying on the birds and watching their 

 movements proved fruitless, the thick foliage blotting out all ^•ision of the 

 female in every instance when she was seen approaching. As for the male, he 

 sang daily and hourly, and almost every ten minutes, from his perch on a 

 large tree nearby. At length every sapling was searched in turn, until 

 the nest came in sight hidden by the leaves in a crotch twelve feet from the 

 ground. 



"The young males of this species," Audubon notes, "do not possess the 

 brilliancy and richness of plumage which the old birds display until the second 

 year, the first being spent in the garb worn by the females; but, toward the 

 second autumn, appear mottled with pure black and vermilion on their sides. 

 Notwithstanding their want of full plumage, they breed and sing the first year 

 like the old males." 



