143 



the outer coverts. The yellow breast 

 spots of the female are also wanting in 

 this dress. 



For further particulars the reader is 

 kindly referred to the colored plate ac- 

 companying this article. 



Like the robin red-breasts, the name 

 of the Redstart seems to have been 

 brought to America by the earlier settlers 

 who were ever on the watch for familiar 

 objects to remind them of former days, 

 and, as in the case of the example just 

 cited, wrongfully ascribed by them to a 

 far dififerent bird. An analogy, however, 

 exists in the coloration of the European 

 and American birds justifying in a meas- 

 ure the reason for so naming it. 



We are told, in Newton's Dictionary of 

 Birds, that the Redstart, the Ruticilla 

 phoenicurus of most ornithologists, is 

 well known in Great Britain, where it is 

 also called the Fire-tail, from the word 

 "start" which in the original Anglo- 

 Saxon "steort," means tail. But the 

 English bird is very difTerent from ours 

 throughout, a marked distinction being 

 its peculiarity of habit in seeking out for 

 a nesting site a hole in a tree or ruined 

 building. 



Our bird, contrary to all this, more cor- 

 rectly builds its nest out of doors, usually 

 selecting the upright forks of some tall 

 shrub or small tree and placing therein 

 a neat, compact structure, in which four 

 or five light-colored eggs are deposited 

 that in their spotted appearance and 

 blotching of various shades of brown re- 

 semble very closely the eggs of the com- 

 mon yellow warbler (Dendroica aestiva). 



But for all this, however, it repairs to 



the shadier depths of the woods while the 

 yellow warbler on the other hand seeks 

 out the more tangled thickets and willow 

 copses. 



The song of the Redstart, too, bears in 

 a striking degree a very close resem- 

 blance to that of this same yellow war- 

 bler, though, as in the case of the nest, 

 the localities frequented by it serve read- 

 ily in making a distinction. "In general 

 tone and quality," as Prof. Lynds Jones 

 has remarked in No. 30 of the Wilson 

 Bulletin, "Warbler Songs," "there is a 

 strong resemblance to the Yellow, but the 

 range of variation is greater and the song 

 distinctly belongs to the 'ringing aisles' 

 of the woods." "The common utterance 

 can be recalled by che, che, chc, che — pa, 

 the last syllable abruptly falling and 

 weakening." "A soft song is like wee- 

 see, wee-see-wee, with a suggestion at 

 least of a lower pitch for the last syllable." 



The range of the American Redstart 

 IS quite extended, including, as we may 

 say, all of North America, though it is 

 very rare and irregular in the States west 

 of the Sierras. It is said to breed from 

 Kansas northward. 



Tabulated observations compiled by 

 the writer at Glen Ellyn, Illinois, during 

 the past seven years, show that the south- 

 ward movement of the Redstart com- 

 mences about the end of the first week in 

 August ; the first part of September finds 

 them common, after which their numbers 

 gradually wane, the last of the month, or 

 the first few days in October, witnessing 

 its final departure. 



Benjamin True Gault. 



