12 THE BIRDS OF COOKHAM AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
27. Ruticilla tithys. The Black Redstart. 
The Black Redstart is a winter visitant to this country, and I 
am inclined to think, occurs more commonly than ornithologists 
generally are aware of, for at Mr. Kent’s the taxidermist, at 
Hastings, I observed several pairs, all of which had been obtained 
in the neighbourhood. I have only one instance of its occur- 
rence at Cookham, but I think there is no doubt of the species. 
Mr. Briggs telis me that a few years ago* in the depth of winter, 
he was out shooting with Stanniforth early in the morning, when 
his attention was drawn to a female Redstart (as he thought) 
sitting on a post close to them. It was snowing very hard at 
the time, and he pointed out the bird to his companion, remark- 
ing that it was the first time he had ever observed the Redstart 
in winter. On mentioning the circumstance to Mr. Gould, 
shortly after, that gentleman told him it must have been the 
Black Redstart. The female of this and the foregoing species do 
not differ so much as the males, and had it been the latter, no 
doubt could have entered Mr. Briggs’s mind as to the species. A 
most interesting account of the habits and economy of the Black 
Redstart is contained in Mr. Gould’s Birds of Great Britain, and 
will well repay the ornithologist who reads it. As it is too long 
to be copied here, I must give a little notice of the bird as 
observed by my friend, Mr. KH. M. Young, of Formosa Cottage, 
which I extract from my paper on that gentleman’s collection 
published in the Vaturalist, vol. II. p. 186. Mr. Young observes: 
—‘ This little bird was not easily obtained. I shot it among the 
cedars of Lebanon, where its peculiarly shrill note attracted my 
attention. I had not seen it previously in Syria, but there seemed 
* Through the whole course of this paper, and also in my contributions 
to Mr. Clark-Kennedy’s “Birds of Berkshire,” many birds are recorded 
with no exact date. The reason of this inaccuracy is, that up to the time 
of my going to Cookham and interesting myself about its Ornithology, no 
one had taken the trouble (Mr. Gould, who is always most accurate in 
that point, excepted) to preserve dates or memoranda, so that beyond 
the fact that birds occurred a few year's ago, I am unable to give the date 
with precision. As, however, most of the birds shot are in the Formosa 
collection, or my own, and therefore of undoubted occurrence in the 
locality, I must appeal to Ornithologists generally to excuse any inaccura- 
cies in the dates, great care having been taken in every instance to obtain 
the time of year, and particulars of the capture or observation of each 
species.—R. B, 8, 
