138 SAXICOLIN^b:. RUTICILLA. 



Male, 6|, 12 J, 3, T V, 1 A, Jf, T V Female, 6J, llf < 

 The Stonechat is the earliest of our summer visitants, arriving 

 about the middle of March. It is generally dispersed, betaking 

 itself to sandy downs, pastures, and stony slopes, both on the 

 coast and in the interior. Rude stone or turf walls are favourite 

 places of resort ; and it reposes at night in holes among stones, 

 or in rabbit burrows. It is a very lively and active bird, hop- 

 ping along with great celerity, flying low by short starts, fre- 

 quently emitting its cry of chack, chack, and when standing, 

 jerking its body like the bushchats. Its food consists of in- 

 sects, worms, and small testaceous mollusca. It has a short, 

 lively and pleasantly modulated song, which it performs some- 

 times when perched on a rock, wall, or turf, more frequently 

 while hovering in the air, or during its short flights. The nest, 

 which is composed of grass, roots, and moss, with a lining of 

 hair, wool, and feathers, is placed in a hole under a stone, or 

 in a Avail, or in the ground. The eggs, five or six, or from four 

 to seven, are elongated, oval, ten-twelfths in length, seven- 

 twelfths in breadth, pale greenish-blue. Two broods are 

 reared. On the southern downs, where they collect in great 

 numbers in autumn, these birds are caught with nooses placed 

 between two turfs, they being esteemed delicious food. 



White-rump. Fallow-smich. Wheatear. "White-tail. 

 Stone-chat. Stane-chack. 



Motacilla (Enanthe, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 332. Saxicola 

 (Enanthe, Temm. Man. d'Ornith, i. 237. Saxicola (Enanthe, 

 "White-rumped Stonechat, MacGillivray, Brit. Birds, ii. 289. 



GENUS XLIL RUTICILLA. REDSTART. 



Bill rather short, slender, a little depressed at the base, 

 compressed toward the end ; upper mandible with its dorsal 

 line slightly declinate and nearly straight, the ridge very 

 narrow at the base, a slight sinus on the edges, close to the 

 tip, which is slightly declinate, very narrow, and rather acute ; 

 lower mandible with the angle of moderate length, the edges 

 inflected, the tip narrowed to a bluntish point ; the gape-line 

 straight. Mouth of moderate width ; tongue of ordinary 

 length, sagittate, papillate at the base, narrow, bristly on the 

 edges, with the tip slit ; oesophagus of moderate width and 

 nearly uniform ; proventriculus oblong ; stomach roundish, 

 elliptical, compressed, its lateral muscles rather thick, the 

 epithelium dense and longitudinally rugous ; intestine of mo- 



