ARMITT: WALLS AND WALL-NESTERS. 247 
Now it is in these walls, as well as in the open sides of out-houses, 
that birds very frequently here place their nests; and it has seemed 
to me that the birds that do so place them are more common with 
us than elsewhere. If so (though in this I may be mistaken) our 
stone walls have multiplied the life of those species of birds that 
have adapted themselves to pia nesting chance thus offere 
Of these species the st prominent example is the Redstart. 
It is a bird evenly disteibuted, I believe, in summer over England ; 
nowhere described as common, and in some places rare. It is 
on 
large number that breed with us every year. Perhaps I have been 
favourably situated in a Redstart centre, so to speak. At all events 
I have tried to compute sometimes the adult population of Redstarts 
settled here for nesting purposes—roughly, indeed, for a bird census 
is by no means easy to take! ne can mark, however, the station 
taken up by the male bird, where in an extremely limited area he 
may always be found, singing and disporting himself in that period 
when the unseen hen is attending to her nesting duties. This is 
towards the end of May. Ina favourable season I have passed in 
a walk of two miles five Redstart breeding stations ; while turning 
in another direction I have passed three in a mile and a half. 
Another year, in a walk of about three miles, I have poem seven 
or eight stationary singers. Another good year (1894), in a stroll of 
perhaps four miles, I have counted seven males; and though this 
time—the end of April—it was too soon to be certain they were 
settlers, later they became, if I may so put it, more perplexingly 
numerous still. I clearly fixed three males settled on the precincts 
of one farmstead alone, and at least three about another small 
and only twice has the site been a 
natural one—once in a crevice of a bold up-standing rock, and 
another in a deserted quarry niche, so not quite natural after all !* 
It is the walls and the byre-sides, where open masonry prevails, that 
Contain the numerous nests of the Redstarts. The hole for the nest 
is chosen with care. co have often caught a pair of Redstarts—the 
Sera oe 
e the Abate was written, upon experience gained upon the upper slopes 
of the Esthwaite somal : have found the Redstart’s nest at Jast in a tree, placed 
IM a niche of a pollar My removal to a new loca lity of Lakeland, where 
old park timber jhe pind ful nest-roo tg has furnished the interest and pleasure 
of wat ching how many birds take advantage of it. I hope to furnish some note 
: = ma ter. The opi — aig ae — —— than I antag In 
