WHIN-CHAT. 55 
not till I hid myself most carefully and patiently behind the 
door, that I made myself master of the vigilant little sentinel’s 
secret. It lays four or five, and, occasionally, six eggs, of a pale. 
uniform blue colour, perhaps tinged with a faint green shade. They 
are almost as pretty as the Hedge-Sparrow’s.—fig. 15, plate II. 
51. BLACK REDSTART—(Phenicura Tithys), 
Tithys, Redstart, Black Red-tail.—It has been met with in 
Britain perhaps half-a-dozen times, or rather more. 
51. STONE-CHAT—(Sazicola rubicola). 
Stone-chatter, Stone-clink, Stone-smick, Stone-chack, Stone- 
smith, Moor-titlmg, Chickstone, Black-cap—A very eommon 
bird in many districts, and from his habits much more familiarly 
and commonly known and noticed than other birds equally 
or even more abundant, but of less obtrusive, or quieter habits. 
Flitting about from bush to bush, and seating himself pertly on the 
top spray, there he sits and “chats” or “clinks” till the pas- 
senger comes too near, and then off he flies again, to perch again 
a few yards further and repeat the same performance. The nest, 
sometimes very neat and well-constructed, of moss and benty 
grass, and lined with hair, feathers, fine grass-stalks, &c., is often 
quite on the ground and with no bush near; sometimes at the 
foot of alow bush, or in the bush itself, but very near the ground. 
The eggs are five or six, of a pale blue ground, very sparingly 
freckled with dull reddish brown, and chiefly near the large end. 
The nest is often hard to find, and especially when built among 
tongish herbage, or in or near a whin-bush—Jiv. 16, plate IT. 
53. WHIN-CHAT.—(Sazicola rubctra). 
Grass-chat, Furze-chat—Many of the birds last-named pass 
the winter in England; but only a few of the Whin-chats. This 
is never so abundant a species as the last, and though with some 
a. 
