REDSTART. 73 



of this theme, and disconnected parts of it. Besides this song, 

 the bird utters several calls and notes of alarm. 



These yellow-throats are only summer residents in Canada. 

 They arrive from the south during the early part of May, and before 

 August has closed most of them have crossed our border, and 

 are winging their way toward the Gulf States and the West Indies, 

 where they winter. 



REDSTART. 



This active and brilliantly-plumaged bird might be described as a 

 flj'-catching warbler. Many of the family have the habit of catch- 

 ing flies in the air, and several species have the depressed bill, 

 widened at the base, together with conspicuous rictal bristles, 

 which are diagnostic characters of the true fly-catcher. But in no 

 other warbler that occurs in Canada are fly-catcher habits and form 

 so marked as in the redstart. The bird d(jes not, however, depend 

 wholly upon its winged prey for food, and may be seen foraging for 

 insects among the branches of the shrubbery and small trees, or 

 even on the ground. 



The redstarts enter Canada about the middle of May, and are 

 away again before the end of August ; but in this time they spread 

 all over these Eastern Provinces, building their nests in the parks 

 and pastures, or in open groves of mixed woods near the settle- 

 ments, some pairs even penetrating into the deeper forests. They 

 show a preference for the smaller trees and shrubbery, and are 

 never found on the top branches of high trees, as are so many of 

 their congeners. 



The nest is usually placed in the fork of a sapling, or saddled on 

 a branch of a low bush, and is a gracefully-formed and compact 

 structure. It is composed chiefly of vegetable fibres of various 

 sorts, dried grass being conspicuous in most examples, and fine 

 grass and hair is generally used in the lining. The four or five 

 eggs that the hen lays are of a dull white ground color, marked 

 with spots of brown and lilac, which are gathered most thickly 

 round the larger end. This is the usual pattern of warbler eggs, 



