THE RED START. 199 



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 repetition 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 agitation, 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 greatly, which is expressed 

 with unremitting vociferation. All this parental 

 anxiety, however, is no longer in operation than 

 during the helpless state of their offspring, which, 

 being enabled to provide their own requirements, 

 gradually cease to be the objects of solicitude and 

 care ; they retire to some distant hedge, become shy 

 and timid things, feeding in unobtrusive silence. 



Soon after the broods are matured, we lose sight 

 of the male red start. As we generally see him in the 

 spring for a few days unaccompanied by his mate, 

 we might suppose that he has again unsocially sepa- 

 rated from his family ; but whatever imperative mo- 

 tive may actuate him in the former period, he does 

 not now seem to be influenced by it, but he moults 

 so completely as to part with all the characteristic 

 featherings of the sex ; and we may observe many 

 of these birds flitting about the sunny retired hedge- 

 rows in July without a single male attendant, yet, 



