SPECIES 6. MUSCICAPA RUTICILLtf. 



AMERICAN REDSTART. 



[Plate VI. Fig. 6. Male.] 



Muscicapa Ruticilla, LINN. Syst. i, 236, 10. GMEL. Syst. i, 935. 

 -Motacillaflavicauda, GMEL. Syst. i, 997. (female). Le Gobe- 

 mouche d'Jlmerique, BRISS. Orn. n, 383, 14. PL Enl. 566, jig. 

 1, 2. Small American Redstart, EDW. 80. Id. 257. (female}. 

 Yellow-tailed Warbler, drct. Zool. n, No. 301. Id. n, No. 

 282. LATHAM, Syn. iv, 427, 18. Arct. Zool. n, No. 301, (fe- 

 male). PEALE'S Museum, No. 6658. 



THOUGH this bird has been classed by several of our most re^ 

 spectable ornithologists among the Warblers, yet in no species 

 are the characteristics of the genus Muscicapa more decisively 

 marked; and in fact it is one of the most expert Flycatchers of 

 its tribe. It is almost perpetually in motion; and will pursue a 

 retreating party of flies from the tops of the tallest trees, in an 

 almost perpendicular, but zig-zag direction, to the ground, 

 while the clicking of its bill is distinctly heard, and I doubt 

 not but it often secures ten or twelve of these in a descent of 

 three or four seconds. It then alights on an adjoining branch, 

 traverses it lengthwise for a few moments, flirting its expanded 

 tail from side to side, and suddenly shoots off, in a direction 

 quite unexpected, after fresh game, which it can discover at a 

 great distance. Its notes, or twitter, though animated and spright- 

 ly, are not deserving the name of song; sometimes they are 

 weese, weese, weese, repeated every quarter of a minute, as it 

 skips among the branches; at other times this twitter varies to 

 several other chants, which I can instantly distinguish in the 

 woods, but cannot find words to imitate. The interior of the 

 forest, the borders of swamps and meadows, deep glens covered 



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