1 68 BRITISH BIRDS 



If kept in the house, the cage should be similar to that 

 recommended for the Wheatear ; but it looks better in an 

 outdoor aviary, where a pair will occasionally breed. It 

 must be taken into the house before the frost sets in, 

 for it is impatient of cold, arriving here in April, to take 

 its departure again in September, though a few may 

 Hnger until the first week in October. 



When wild, the Redstart lives almost entirely on 

 insects. Morris relates that a pair were observed to feed 

 their young twenty-three times in an hour, usually bringing 

 more than one caterpillar at once; but allowing that one 

 only was carried, and taking the day as consisting of 

 fourteen hours, the magnificent total of two thousand 

 two hundred and fifty-four per week is arrived at. In the 

 autumn, a few berries are partaken of. When kept in a 

 cage, it must be fed and treated as recommended in the 

 case of the Wheatear. 



The nest consists of a few leaves and stems of grass, 

 placed loosely together in a hole in a tree, wall, or 

 building, or very rarely in the mouth of a disused rabbit- 

 burrow. The eggs are six or seven in number, and much 

 resemble those of the Hedge Sparrow, but are somewhat 

 less vividly blue. 



The young can be easily brought up by hand on ants' 

 eggs, maggots and other insects; but artificial feeding 

 {i.e., on "prepared foods," bread and milk, and so on) is 

 not usually a success. They leave the nest early, even before 

 they can fly, possibly because of want of room in the 

 crevice where they were born, or perhaps from a sense 

 of insecurity attaching to a domicile with only one open- 

 ing for ingress and exit. If they are wanted for training, 

 therefore, they must be taken as soon as the quills of the 

 wing and tail feathers begin to sprout, at which time they 

 will gape more freely in order to be fed, than they would 

 do if older. 



Indigestion, from the use of unsuitable food, is at the 

 bottom of the complaints from which the captive Redstart 

 is liable to suffer, and if he is treated correctly he will 

 live free from them all, and attain to the utmost term of 

 his natural life in health, beauty and happiness. 



