TURDIDM— REDSTARTS. 



79 



Writing from Epping in 1832, Henry Doubleday "says (lo) : "The Redstart 

 has arrived this year in immense numbers. I never saw half so many before." A 

 little latter heildescribes it (10) 

 as " more abundant than I ever 

 knew it before. The forest liter- 

 ally swarms with them. Some 

 females j [were] sitting on the 

 last day of April." Mr. Buxton 

 says (47. 90) it is now " frequent 

 injsummer and a great ornament 

 to our Forest." Mr. Clarke de- 

 scribes it (24) as "common in 

 summer " round Saffron Wal- 



den. King says (20) :it was kedstai. . 



■"common" at Sudbury in his (After Bewick.) 



time [(1840), and Mr. Grubb includes it (39) in his list of Sudbury birds. 

 Round Harwich, Mr. Kerry says a few breed ; he adds that they were very 

 common during the autumn migration in 1888. After the excavations in 1878, 

 at the site of the supposed Saxon cemetery in the grounds of the late Mr. George 

 Stacey Gibson, at Saffron Walden, when nearly two hundred skeletons were dis- 

 covered, a Redstart made its nest and reared four young in one of the skulls during 

 the time it remained exposed. Access to the-interior was obtained through the eye 

 orbit. The skull and nest, which I, have seen, are still in the possession of Mrs. Gib- 

 son (34. 5042 & 51 16). Lieut. Vincent Legge, R.A., writing from South Shoe- 

 bury in 1865, says (23. 9836) : " This bird is very plentiful about here, frequenting 

 particularly those parts where the pollard willows most abound, * * * I never 

 saw them so plentiful in any part of England, and most probably it is on account 

 of the numbers of these trees, which line the] ditches in the marshy districts 

 that are so common here," and for which he says they have a special predilec- 

 tion. In 1865 their eggs were laid " for the most part by the last week in April." 



Black Redstart : Ruticilla titys. 



A regular, though uncommon, winter visitor to the extreme south- 

 west of England but rare 

 and occasional elsewhere. 

 I only know of its having 

 occurred twice or thrice in 

 Essex. A recorded instance 

 of its having bred in the 

 county is, I am satisfied, 

 virholly erroneous.* 



Mr. Kerry records one (40. 

 iii. 306) shot at Ramsey on April 

 14th, 1879, and he informs me of 

 another seen at Dovercourt in 

 December, 1887. The Rev. H. black redstart, male, y^. 



■ Mr. W. R. Ogilvie Grant has recorded (40. 390 & 50. ii. 192 & 256) this more than doubtful 



