294 THE WHITE-FRONTED REDSTART. 



The Common or White-Fronted Kedstart. 



(Motacilla Phoenicurus.) Linn. (Sylvia Phoenicurus. ) Lath. 



" A little, helpless, innocent bird, 

 That has but one plain passage of few notes 

 Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 

 For all an April morning, till the ear 

 Wearies to hear it." — Tennyson. 



Three species of redstarts are summer migrants to Britain, but 

 this is the only one that visits St Andrews. It arrives about 

 the end of April in south-east winds, along with the flycatchers, 

 whitethroat, and blackcap, and leaves in the end of September. 

 It frequents gardens, near rough old walls, like our old Abbey 

 wall at the south-east side of the city, in the holes of which it 

 makes its nest. In June 1892 I got a nest with six eggs, in a 

 hole at the top of the wall opposite Abbey Villa, near the 

 Burgh School. It was also spied by the boys and harried. It 

 also breeds in the holes of old trees near woody thickets ; some- 

 times in the hole of a summer-house, or on a shelf in a tool-house 

 — loves to be near man — but it is not common here. The nest 

 is made of dry roots and moss, lined with hair and some 

 feathers. It lays six or seven light greenish-blue eggs, less than 

 the hedge-sparrow. In habits it is like the flycatchers — so 

 much so that it will contend with them for the same hole for 

 their nest, they having been known to kill each other in doing 

 so. It also lives on flies, which it catches on the wing. It is 

 surprising the number it consumes, for it has been tested that a 

 redstart in a cage can eat six hundred flies an hour ; but equally 

 voracious are all insectivorous birds, owing to the small quantity 

 of nutrition in insects — the greater part of which pass undigested. 

 It has a low, short, sweet, but imperfect song, something like 

 the whitethroat's — which the male, perched on the top of a tall 

 tree or post, will sometimes sing over and over again from dawn 

 till dusk. This pretty, lively little bird is easily known by its 

 black throat and well-marked white forehead. The top of the 

 head, upper part of neck and back are deep bluish-grey ; the 

 breast, sides, rump, and tail (except the two middle feathers) 

 are fine reddish-orange — hence it is sometimes called the red- 

 tail, which, however, instead of bobbing up and down like the 

 wagtail, it shakes from side to side like a dog. The bill and 



