390 THE COMMON REDSTART. 



resemble the Nightingale, and are often mistaken for it. They 

 may be reared with the least difficulty on ants' eggs, with 

 which bread soaked in milk is gradually mixed, till they become 

 accustomed to the paste. The Redstart is very ready to imi- 

 tate the songs of other birds which it may chance to hear. 



Diseases. Diarrhoea and atrophy are the diseases most fatal 

 to this bird. 



Mode of Taking. In spring the Redstart, like the Red- 

 breast, may be taken by placing limed twigs in the hedges 

 frequented by it. To these it must be gently driven. Like 

 the Nightingale, it may also be attracted by meal worms. In 

 autumn they may be caught, in considerable numbers, in gar- 

 dens and groves, by a noose baited with elderberries. Those 

 which are intended to be kept are best caught in springes, of 

 which the wooden part is covered with felt, to prevent injury 

 to their legs. The birds of one year old are preserved with 

 least difficulty. They may also be taken in the water- trap. 



Attractive Qualities. Not the beauty only, but also the 

 liveliness and the song of this bird, render it a favourite. Its 

 body is always in motion ; it never ceases to bow, and shakes 

 its tail from side to side ; and all its movements are active and 

 graceful. Its own song is pretty, and often enriched by notes 

 borrowed from the songs of the neighbouring birds. One, for 

 example, which has built near my house, imitates the song of a 

 Chaffinch, whose cage hangs before my window ; and another, 

 whose nest is in my neighbour's garden, repeats some of the 

 notes of a Blackcap close by. The faculty possessed by the 

 Redstart of appropriating to itself, even when at liberty, the 

 songs of other birds, is very unusual. 



It soon becomes tame enough to take meal worms from the 

 hand. 



SWEET'S ACCOUNT. " This is a very elegant and interesting 

 species, and a good songster its food is precisely the same 

 as the last species ; in confinement it will sing by night as well 

 as by day, if a light be kept in the room where it is ; it will 

 soon get very tame and familiar in confinement, and will be much 

 attached to the person that feeds it ; if brought up from the nest, 

 it may be learned to sing any tune that is whistled or sung to it. 

 One that I was in possession of some years back, learnt to sing 

 the Copenhagen Waltz, that it had frequently heard sung, only 

 it would sometimes stop in the middle of it, and say chipput, a 

 name by which it was generally called, and which it would always 



