BLACK REDSTART. 29 
Sus-raminy SAXICOLIN AL. 
BLACK REDSTART. 
RuriciLa trys, Scop. 
Pl. VEIL, fie. 11, 
Geogr. distr—South and Central Europe, eastward to Persia and 
southward to N. Africa: in Great Britain it is an occasional visitor, 
most frequent in autumn and winter; it is certainly rare in Scotland; 
in England itis said to have bred in Exeter, Staffordshire, and Notting- 
hamshire, and I have the egg taken in Hertfordshire. 
Food.— Worms, insects, berries. 
Nest.—Tolerably neatly constructed of dried grasses mixed with 
rootlets or moss, and lined with hair, wool, and a few feathers. 
Position of nest.—In holes in cliffs, old walls or buildings near 
human habitations, or in a hole in a tree; also in hedges. 
Number of eggs.—4-5. 
Time of nidification.—IV-VI; May. 
An egg of this species was exhibited at a Meeting of the 
Zoological Society in 1878* by the Rev. R. P. Barron, 
M.A.,as having been found by himself two years previously 
in a hole in an elm tree in his neighbourhood, and was 
recognised by Mr. Dresser and others as that of the Black 
Redstart. I had some conversation with Mr. Barron 
respecting this egg, and asked him to let me figure it in 
the present work, and he shortly afterwards sent it to me 
with the nest and the following notes :— 
“The nest, I fear, is not very perfect, having been two 
years left in its place ; it was found in the middle of May, 
1876, right inside the hollow trunk of a living elm tree, at 
a distance of about seven or eight feet from the ground, on 
a projecting ledge of the inside wood, and within a few feet 
of a small lake. There were originally three eggs, of a 
slightly pinkish tint before being blown; they had been 
forsaken ; the nest seemed to be lined with hair and hay. 
You need not, of course, return the egg or nest.” ae 
The nest appears to me to have lost much of its original 
bulk, the lining having probably been utilised by other 
birds before it was taken; the ege sent to me was of a 
bluish-white colour; it is figured on Pl. VIII., but the 
lithographic printing has exaggerated the blue tint which 
has now almost, if not quite, disappeared from the ege in 
my cabinet. 
* Curiously enough this exhibition does not appear to have been 
recorded in the Proceedings. 
