ii 4 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



constantly in motion when it sits on an old wall or branch 

 of a tree, watching your movements all the time, uttering 

 its alarm-note. The redstart arrives in this country 

 about the middle of April, and leaves again early in 

 September. The male bird is very handsome, with his 

 jet-black throat, dark blue-grey head and back and wings, 

 white streak over the eye, bright, rusty red breast, rump, 

 and tail, except the central feathers, white under-parts and 

 dark legs. The female is a rusty brownish-grey, with the 

 rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail, except the central feathers, 

 orange-red duller than in the male. 



Seebohm says : " As the wheat-ear is the tenant of the 

 cairns, the rocks, and the ruins of the wilds, in like manner 

 the redstart may be designated a bird of the ruins and the 

 rocks in the lower, warmer, and more cultivated districts. 

 The redstart has rather a pleasing song, best heard in 

 early morning, something like a wren's, only not so loud or 

 buoyant, but its call-note, Weet-tit-tit, sharply uttered, is 

 more familiar to us than its song." 



THE HEDGE-SPARROW. 



The HEDGE-SPARROW (Accentor modularis), Winter Fau- 

 vette, Dunnoch, Hedge- Warbler, is no sparrow, but one of 

 the Sylviadce. 



This familiar bird, common everywhere, frequenting our 

 hedgerows and gardens, remains with us all the year, and, 

 like the robin, comes close to our habitation in the winter, 

 but is not so bold. Its pleasant song may be heard at all 

 times through the day and often far into the night. It is 

 an early nester, and its compact nest with its blue eggs is 

 the delight of schoolboys. It is the commonest of the 

 foster-mothers of the cuckoo, that bird appearing to choose 

 this nest for depositing its eggs more frequently than any 

 other; and Drayton says that the hedge-sparrow is often 

 devoured by its giant foster-child : 



" The hedge-sparrow, this wicked bird, that bred, 

 That him so long and diligently fed, 

 By her kind tendrance, getting strength and power, 

 His careful nurse doth cruelly devour." 



