204 THE RED START. 



diately from the hatch to fitting situations for food 

 and water, and all their wants are most admirably 

 attended to ; but the constant journeyings of those 

 parent birds that have nestlings unable to move 

 away, the speed with which they accomplish their 

 trips, the anxiety they manifest, and the long 

 labour in which they so gaily persevere, is most 

 remarkable and pleasing, and a duty consigned but 

 to a few. 



We have no bird more assiduous in attentions 

 to their young, than the red-start, (steort> Saxon, a 

 tail,) one or other of the parents being in perpetual 

 action, conveying food to the nest, or retiring in 

 search of it, but as they are active, quick- sigh ted 

 creatures, they seem to have constant success in 

 their transits. They are the most restless and sus- 

 picious of birds during this season of hatching 

 and rearing their young ; for when the female is 

 sitting, her mate attentively watches over her 

 safety, giving immediate notice of the approach of 

 any seemingly hostile thing, by a constant repeti- 

 tion of one or two querulous notes, monitory to her 

 or menacing to the intruder : but when the young 

 are hatched, the very appearance of any suspicious 

 creature sets the parents into an agony of agita- 

 tion, and perching upon some dead branch or a 

 post, they persevere in one unceasing clamour till 

 the object of their fears is removed : a magpie near 

 their haunts, with some reason, excites their terror 



