Correspondence.



185



The test of a popular name is its popularity and this particular name

stands the test well, for I doubt if there is anyone in this country, interested

in insectivorous birds, who is not acquainted with the name or who would

apply it to any other species. It seems to me to be a simple and obvious

abbreviation. Just as Nightingale becomes “Gale,” * so Redstart frequently

becomes “ ’Start ” (an abbreviation which I saw in print only a few days since)

and “ Blackstart ” is therefore simply “ Black-’Start.”


With regard to the other points Mr. Ticehurst raises. He seems to have

misunderstood my remarks because I used the phrase “ nest-feather ” as equiva¬

lent to “ nestling plumage,” but, if he had read the notes I contributed on the

nesting of this species, he would have understood my meaning. In these notes

I restricted myself chiefly to those points on which I thought the nesting of the

species, as observed by me, might throw some light. The plumage of immature

Blackstarts after the first autumnal moult has been often observed and I there¬

fore did not refer to it (except incidentally), but probably very few aviculturists

in this country have seen young Blackstarts in the nest, or reared them from the

nest, so I pointed out how much darker young males in nestling plumage (before

the first autumnal moult) are than adult females and also how much darker than

in their first winter plumage. This seemed to me to be interesting and I had

not seen the fact noted elsewhere. I called the first winter plumage an “eclipse

plumage ’ ’ because it is duller either than that which precedes or than that which

follows, and because it is presumably protective.


And now as to the question whether immature Blackstarts have a spring-

moult or not. Ornithologists either label a species as “ having a spring-moult ”

or “ not having a spring-moult,” hut it never seems to occur to them that it

may sometimes have such a moult and sometimes not. Yet every aviculturist

realises that in the matter of moult not only every species but every individual

is a law unto itself. Of the three immature male Blackstarts which I have

had under observation during the spring months, two showed some change in

March (a few dark feathers appearing on the upper breast) and one of these

birds which I had occasion to handle, as will be inferred from the following

note, was found to be casting some flights.


11 March, 1910. “ Heard Blackstart in No. 2 Div. singing; song rich,


bubbling, and in parts like a Starling’s.”


5 April, 1910. “Transferred Blackstart to No. 4 Div.; has some

primaries missing.”



* The name of the Nightingale is full of charming and poetical associa¬

tions. “Gale” is certainly a most undesirable abbreviation, and whether it be

due to laziness or not, it decidedly gives one that impression. Hundreds of

people would not know what it was meant to signify. Neither is the abbreviation

Blackstart correct, because start = tail, and the Black Redstart has, as its name

implies, a red tail. Blackstart = Blacktail. In old English ‘start,’ ‘stert,’ or

‘ steort.’—ED.



