en FF Re 
THE RED START. 249 
shorter than the head; hind toe equal to the lateral; coloration embracing more or 
less of red in northern species. 
This genus differs from MMytodioctes chiefly in the longer, broader tail, and rather 
shorter tarsi and toes, the hinder especially; the bill is more muscicapine; the 
culmen nearly straight to the abruptly decurved and much notched tip; the gonys 
straight; in JMJqyiodioctes the vertical outlines are more convex; the gonys more 
ascending; the tip gently and but slightly decurved. 
* SETOPHAGA RUTICILLA. — Swainson. 
The Red Start. 
Muscicapa ruticilla, Linneeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 326. Wil. Am. Orn., I. 
(1808) 108. Aud. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 202; V. (1839) 428. 
Sylvania ruticilla, Nuttall. Man., I. (1882) 291. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Male. — Prevailing color black; a central line on the breast, the abdomen, and 
under tail coverts, white; some feathers in the latter strongly tinged with dark- 
brown; bases of all the quills, except the inner and outer, and basal half of all 
the tail feathers, except the middle one, a patch on each side of the breast, and the 
axillary region orange-red, of a vermilion shade on the breast. Female with the 
black replaced by olive-green above, by brownish-white beneath; the head tinged 
with ash; a grayish-white lore and ring round the eye; the red of the male 
replaced by yellow. 
Length, five and twenty-five one-hundredths inches; wing, two and fifty one- 
hundredths inches; tail, two and forty-five one-hundredths inches. 
This quite common species is a summer resident, and 
breeds in all the New-England States. It arrives from the 
South from about the first to the middle of May, accord- 
ing to latitude, and commences 
building about the first week 
in June. The nest is usually 
placed on a low limb of a 
small tree, often in a hori- 
zontal fork, seldom more than 
ten feet from the ground. It 
is constructed of strips of 
cedar bark, grape-vine bark, 
grasses, and fine weeds: these 
materials are adjusted neatly, and agglutinated by the bird’s 
saliva into a compact structure, to the exterior of which 
are attached, or plastered on by the bird’s saliva, fragments 
