330 SYLVIID.E. 



meadows, orchards and gardens, and is partial to old walls 

 and ruins, particularly if overrun with ivy. The male bird 

 is remarkable for the distribution and purity of the colours 

 of his plumage, and makes himself rather conspicuous by 

 perching on the uppermost branch of low trees, repeatedly 

 flirting and jerking his tail, and singing his soft and sweet 

 song, occasionally taking a short flight to some other pro- 

 minent station. Like most of those birds that are gifted 

 with powers of song, as observed in the account of the Black- 

 bird, the Redstart is also an imitator of the notes of other 

 species ; and some have been taught, like the Bullfinch, to 

 repeat a tune. 



The food of the Redstart is worms, beetles and their grubs, 

 flies, spiders, ants and their eggs, fruit and berries. Most 

 of these are sought on the ground ; but it is also frequently 

 seen to capture insects on the wing with as much ease and 

 certainty as the true Flycatchers*. 



The nest, which is rather loosely constructed, is formed 

 externally of moss, dry grass and fine roots, and lined with 

 hair and feathers : it is commonly placed in a hollow tree, 

 the hole of a wall, the roof of a building, or behind a branch 

 of a tree that is trained against a wall, and sometimes in a 

 hole on the ground even where there has happened to be 

 abundance of trees ; while many more exceptional localities 

 have been observed to be chosen on occasion by the bird 

 such as a large inverted flower-pot, to which entrance was 

 obtained through the hole in the bottom ; a partly-open 

 drawer in a garden- shed ; the gudgeon of a door-hinge, as 

 figured by Bishop Stanley ; not to mention convenient niches 

 in the interior of inhabited houses. In Lapland on more 

 than one occasion Wolley found that a Redstart had laid its 

 eggs in the nest of a Titmouse (Parus cinctus). 



The eggs are from five to seven or even eight in number, 

 and are of a pale greenish-blue generally lighter than those 



* This feat is very characteristic of the beautiful bird usually known in North 

 America as the Redstart {Setopliaga ruticilla), belonging to he family Mniotiltidve, 

 which is confined to the New World, and has perhaps greater affinity to the 

 Muscicapidce than the Sylviidce. 



