22 Bird Portraits 



The name of the family to which the Redstart belongs needs, 

 perhaps, a word of explanation. It simply means that our Warblers 

 are related to a family of European birds which have well earned 

 their name, since the family includes the Nightingale and one or two 

 other birds almost as musical. The name Redstart, too, is English, 

 — start coming from the Anglo-Saxon word for tail. It was applied 

 in England to a bird with a red tail, and since our bird has 

 bright color in the tail, the name was transferred to it by the 

 English settlers. 



Many of the Warblers frequent the thick woods and are little 

 noticed ; the Redstart, however, often builds in the trees or shrubbery 

 about the house, particularly if a brook or pool afford an abundance 

 of insects. In the crotch of a sapling or on a limb, the female 

 places a pretty nest built of bark and soft materials. The female 

 resembles the male in the pattern of color, but the black is replaced 

 by gray, and the orange by a faint yellowish shade. Males only 

 one year old resemble the female so closely that the sharp little 

 song often seems to proceed from the bill of a female; in reality 

 it is a young male that is singing, one not yet arrived at the full 

 splendor of his future gay plumage. 



The Redstart is often victimized by the Cowbird, and one feels 

 the imposition more keenly in its case than in that of almost any 

 other bird, for we know that the big clumsy Cowbird is being reared 

 at the expense of a whole family of these pretty warblers. 



The Redstart comes early in May and stays through the summer. 

 Some are seen even as late as October, but these are, very likely, 

 birds which have bred far North, where the late summer did not 

 permit them to rear their young so early as our own birds. 



