AT LIXDEX BEND. 13 



In May tlicy build the daintiest of nests, using only 

 choice materials ; fixing them among forked branches 

 of small trees, seldom at a greater height than six or 

 seven feet. The supports of their nests are always 

 wrapped with an abundance of tln-ead-like fibres, such 

 as require the very sharpest eyes to find. Of all the 

 many nests that I have found, none have been so far 

 distant from water that the sittino; bird could not look 

 out upon it. One nest was in a button-bush, that fairly 

 trembled upon the brink of a mill - dam, nearly thirty 

 feet in height. At times, the wind carried back great 

 clouds of spray, that for the moment enveloped the 

 bush ; but the birds were never discouraged, and the 

 brood was successfully reared. Proximity to the water 

 does not hold good of redstarts' nests the country over ; 

 but as far as my own observation goes, the birds them- 

 selves are essentially "water warblers." They con- 

 stantly visit my door-yard, it is true ; but they seem to 

 live by the creek-side. It is the relative abundance of 

 insect life that decides the question with them, and is 

 n,ot this, as a rule, near ponds and ditches rather than 

 npland fields — the creek and river rather than the forest ? 

 At all events, since the first of their kind, at the open- 

 ing of the warbler era, gave chase to a fly, their appetites 

 have never been satisfied. 



It is said of these birds that they will chase insects 

 wdiile you are very near their nests, but their love of a 

 tidbit will sometimes carry them still farther. I once 

 saw one drop a beakful of fluffy nesting material to 

 chase a fly. As it did so, a summer warbler seized the 

 falling bit and made off. The redstart caught the fly, 



