REDSTARTS. 



483 



the genus has half a dozen representatives. Among the prettiest of the summer 

 migrants to Northern and Central Europe is the graceful and attractive bird 

 popularly known as the firetail, or common redstart (R. phcenicurus), partial to 

 parks and gardens, and on its first arrival often perching on the lower branches of 

 large trees ; the male possessing a very charming song. The redstart commonly 

 builds in a hole in a wall, or the interior of some hollow tree, or upon a shelf in 

 some outhouse ; and we once found an open nest of this species placed in the top of 

 a thick bush. The eggs are pale blue, sometimes slightly speckled with red; 

 while the young are easily reared from the nest by hand, and are rather liable 



REDBREAST AND REDSTART (J Uat. size). 



to sport a few white feathers in the first plumage. Foraging among dead leaves 

 for insects, they spend more time upon the ground than the young of any of the 

 allied forms. Often rearing two broods of young during the course of the 

 summer, the redstart in its flight is swift and elegant. Although the male birds 

 generally sing from the branches of trees (unlike the male black redstarts), we 

 have known them to sing habitually upon the roof of a house, exactly as the 

 latter would have done. Leaving their breeding-ground in early autumn, stray 

 birds of this species are often to be met with on the British coast at that season 

 when waiting for an opportunity of taking their departure. The adult male, 

 in summer, has the forehead pure white, the top of the head, scapulars, and back 

 leaden grey : the rump and upper tail-coverts are bright chestnut, as is the tail, 



