Redstarts. 63 



continent, the favourite of the peasant, who looks 

 to his arrival in spring as the sign of a better time 

 approaching. " I hardly hoped," writes my old 

 Oberland guide to me, after an illness in the 

 winter, "to see the flowers again, or hear the 

 little Rothel (Black Redstart) under my eaves." 

 The Oxford Redstarts find convenient holes 

 for their nests in the pollard willows which line 

 the banks of the Cherwell and the many arms of 

 the I sis. The same unvaried and unnatural form 

 of tree, which looks so dreary and ghastly in the 

 waste of winter flood, is .full of comfort and 

 adaptability for the bird in summer. The works 

 of man, though not always beautiful, are almost 

 always turned to account by the birds, and by 

 many kinds preferred to the solitude of wilder 

 haunts. Whether he builds houses, or constructs 

 railways, or digs ditches, or forces trees into an 

 unnatural shape, they are ready to take advantage 

 of every chance he gives them. Only when the 

 air is poisoned by smoke and drainage, and vege- 

 tation retreats before the approach of slums, do 

 they leave their natural friends to live without 

 the charm of their voices all but that strange 



