THE BLLE-BKEAST 125 



neck ; this has heen shown by experience more than 

 once. )) This explains the care with which the redstart 

 is always on the look-out for crumbling ruins and 

 deserted buildings, for there, at least, it hopes that no 

 intruder will come to disturb it. 



If delicate people are unfortunate, those that take 

 umbrage easily are yet more to be pitied. The red-start 

 has nothing of the familiarity of the red-breast nor of the 

 joyous disposition of the warbler. Its disposition is, in 

 the main, a sad one, and something of its melancholy 

 mood has passed into its song, which always seems to be 

 impregnated with sadness, even in the season of love and 

 pairing. All the time the female is brooding, the male 

 red-start remains near the nest, perched on some piece 

 of rock or some tottering stone, and there, from the 

 earliest hours in the morning, it will sing in a sweet voice 

 with varied modulations, which have a faint resemblance 

 to the melody of the nightingale. 



It feeds on flies, spiders, chrysalides and small wild 

 berries. Towards the month of October it emigrates, 

 flying across our woods; then it is possible to catch quite 

 a large number of red-starts in those snares of the pro- 

 vince of Lorraine, of which I have spoken in my chapter 

 on the Finch. It has been vainly tried to tame them. 

 When n full-grown red-start is shut up in a cage, it lets 

 itself starve, or it shuts itself up in obstinate silence. It is 

 only when red-starts arc imprisoned in tender youth that 



