LAEMAMERICAN REDSTART. 87 
Lae 
the groves with his sweetest music. About four o’clock he awakes from 
his slumber, arranges his toilet with care, and with a happy heart starts 
out to breakfast. But few of his neighbors are up, and for a while he 
has everything his ownway. For nearly five hours he is a busy gleaner. 
Fastidious in appetite, he does not accept whatever he meets with, but 
prefers his viands to be of the very best that the great market of the 
world possesses. While beetles are devoured when other articles are 
not convenient, there is manifestly a strong predilection for the jucier 
fly and moth, or the honey-bearing aphis.” 
An actual examination by Mr. Gentry, (at various times ?) of the 
contents of the stomach of the Redstart, disclosed no less than eight 
species of coleopterous insects ; eight species of hymenopterous and 
six kinds of dipterous insects ; several kinds of aphides and small spiders 
such as infest the bark, leaves and flowers of plants; mature forms of 
lepidoptera of various kinds, together with the larvae of various species 
and several kinds of cutworm. “ Yet no hint of indigestion !” says Dr. 
Coues, and from this array of fare, he infers we must admit that the 
Redstart is not only a good hunter, but a voracious and indiscriminate 
feeder, like some other beauties we may know of. He thinks, too, that 
Dr. Brewer attests another curious parallel between this bird and other 
reigning belles: ‘‘“ Even when lamenting the loss of a part of her 
brood, and flying round with cries of distress, the sight of passing 
insects is a temptation not to be resisted, and the parent bird will stop 
her lamentations to catch small flies.”’ 
‘‘ Belonging.as it does,” the Dr. continues, “to a semi-tropical group 
of Warblers, the Redstart would be supposed neither to linger with us 
during the winter, nor to be among the earlier spring arrivals of the 
country at large. I have no information of the bird as an inhabitant of 
