182 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



They are winning, friendly little things, and 

 make pretty nests of fine roots, birch bark, and 

 flower cotton, or some such dainty material. Ac- 

 cording to individual taste, they build in apple- 

 tree crotches, low roadside bushes, or in saplings 



in open woods. In " Paradise " one once built in 

 a loop of grape-vine by the river, and when her 

 gray nest was nearly finished she had a pretty 

 way of sitting inside and leaning over the edge to 

 smooth the outside with her bill and neck, as if 

 she were moulding it. The redstarts take good 

 care to select bark the color of the tree, and in 

 that way defy any but the keenest scrutiny. A 

 little housewife will sometimes fly to her nest 

 with strips of bark four inches long streaming 

 from her bill. 



The redstart's song is a fine, hurried warbler 



