418 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



THE REDSTARTS 

 [R B. KIRKMAN] 



Two species of redstarts visit our Isles, and matters are so 

 arranged that one is with us in the summer, the other in the winter. 

 The former, usually called the redstart, without any qualifying prefix, 

 generally arrives on our shores when its congener, the black-redstart, 

 or blackstart, is on its way back to foreign parts. Why the latter 

 does not stay to breed with us is one of the puzzles of ornithology 

 for it does so in numbers in certain localities in the same latitude, 

 the valley of the Rhine for instance, where the physical features do 

 not differ markedly from those in our own country. It is able to 

 suit itself, moreover, to all temperatures. It is found in Switzerland, 

 both down in the valleys and high up on the mountains. "Wherever," 

 writes Mr. Warde Fowler, "there is a chalet under the eaves of 

 which it can build, there it is to be found as soon as spring has 

 begun to appear, even though the snow is lying all around. I have 

 found it myself nesting in chalets before the herdsmen and cows 

 have arrived there, and, at a height of six thousand feet or more, it 

 has woke me at dawn with its song; yet at the same time it is 

 abounding in the plains of France and Germany, and nowhere have 

 I seen greater numbers than in the park at Luxembourg. l 



The black-redstart's liking for mountain slopes is one of the 

 points wherein he differs from the redstart, which, though also seen 

 in rocky places, is a more familiar sight in the woodland. Both are 

 frequenters of gardens and orchards, but apparently for different 

 reasons, which are implied in the names given the two species by 

 the Germans, to whom the black-redstart is known as the Hausrot- 

 schwanz, and the other as the Gartenrotschwanz. The first is in the 

 garden chiefly for the sake of the building, because he is content to 

 consider a house, or a public building, or, let us say, a town, 



1 A Year tvith the Birds, 2nd edit., p. 58. 



