294 



AMERICAN REDSTART 



often with phrases of their own, in addition to more or less imperfect 

 renderings of the adults' phrases. But never in any variation of the 

 Redstarts singing have I heard an unmistakable imitation of other 

 bird-notes, — as sometimes in the cases of the Chestnut-side and the 

 Northern Yellow-throat. He seems merely to be a singer so laxly 

 versatile that he occasionally chances into the song-styles of other 

 Warblers. His two or three call-notes are more constant. The com- 

 monest one is easily recognizable, though it has much likeness to the 

 calls of several other Warblers." (Thayer, MS.) 



Miss Paddock sends notations of three songs and writes: "The 

 Redstart's voice is shrill and penetrating with a wiry quality. There 

 are two songs, the second less explosive and something like the Chest- 

 nut-sided Warbler's second song." 



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Nesting Site. — The Redstart usually selects an upright crotch from 

 two to thirty feet high in a sapling, the average height being from eight 

 to ten feet. Maples, beeches and elms are frequently chosen but the nest 

 is also placed in other deciduous trees. Burtch (MS.) writes of a nest 

 found June lo, 1900, at Branchport, N. Y., which was saddled on the 

 horizontal branch of a beech twelve feet from the ground. 



Nest. — The nest is usually symmetrical in outline and compactly 

 made. It suggests in general appearance the nest of the Yellow War- 

 bler but contains less plant-down, or none at all. In other respects, 

 however, the Redstart's nest is often not to be distinguished from that 

 of D. cestiva. Externally it is composed largely of bits of spiders' webs 

 and silver-gray plant fibers wrapped about firmly woven inner bark 

 shreds and grasses; the lining consists chiefly of fine grasses, brown 

 root-like fibers, and hairs. In some instances feathers are used in the 

 lining. (Short^.) 



Burtch (MS.) describes a nest found at Branchport, N. Y., June 

 I, 1903, as composed of weed bark and dead grass, lined with fine 

 grass and hair. It was handsomely decorated with the white egg 



