776 REDSTART 
forehead, the black throat and bright bay breast of the cock, 
renders him conspicuous, even if attention be not drawn by his 
lively and pleasing though short and intermittent song. The hen 
is much more plainly attired; but the characteristic colouring and 
action of the tail pertain to her equally as to her mate. The nest 
is almost always placed in a hole, whether of a tree or of a more or 
less ruined building, and contains from five to seven eggs of a 
delicate greenish-blue, occasionally sprinkled with faint red spots. 
The young on assuming their feathers present a great resemblance 
to those of the REDBREAST at the same age; but the red tail, 
though of duller hue than in the adult, forms even at this early 
age an easy means of distinguishing them. ‘The Redstart breeds 
regularly in all the counties of England and Wales; but, except in 
such localities as have been already named, it is seldom plentiful. 
It also reaches the extreme north of Scotland; but in Ireland it is 
of very rare occurrence. It appears throughout the whole of 
Europe in summer, and is known to winter in the interior of 
Africa. To the eastward its limits cannot yet be exactly defined, 
as several very nearly allied forms occur in Asia; and one, f. 
aurorea, represents it in Japan. 
A congeneric species which has received the name of Black 
Redstart,! Fe. titys,2 is very common throughout the greater part of 
the European continent, where, from its partiality for gardens in 
towns and villages, it is often better known than the preceding 
species. It yearly occurs in certain parts of England, chiefly along 
or near the south coast, and curiously enough during the autumn 
and winter, since it is in central Europe only a summer visitor, and 
it has by no means the high northern range of f. phanicurus. The 
males of the Black Redstart seem to be more than one year in 
acquiring their full plumage (a rare thing in Passerine birds), and 
since they have been known to breed in the intermediate stage, this 
fact has led to such birds being accounted a distinct species under 
the name of R. cairii, thereby perplexing ornithologists for a long 
while, though now almost all authorities agree that these birds are, 
in one sense, immature. 
More than a dozen species of the genus futicilla have been 
described, and the greater number of them seem to belong to the 
Himalayan Subregion or its confines. One very pretty and 
interesting form is the R. moussieri of Barbary, which no doubt 
1 The author of a popular work on British birds has suggested for this 
species the name of ‘‘ Blackstart,’’ thereby recording his ignorance of the 
meaning of the second syllable of the compound name as already explained, for 
the Black Redstart has a tail as red as that of the commoner English bird. 
* The orthography of the specific term would seem to be titis, a word 
possibly cognate with the first syllable of TirnaArk and TirmovusE (Ann. Nat. 
Hist. ser. 4, x. p. 227). 
