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Genus RUTICILLA. 



Motacilla apud Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 335 (1766). 



Sylvia apud Scopoli, Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 157 (1769). 



Saccicola apud Koch, Baier. Zool. p. 186 (1816). 



(Enanthe apud Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. xxi. p. 431 (1818). 



Ficeclula apud Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 553. 



Buticilla, C. L. Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1280. 



Phcenicura apud Swainson, Faun. Bor.-Am. ii. p. 489 (1831). 



Lusciola apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. 58 (1840). 



Erythacus apud Degland, Orn. Eur. i. p. 504 (1849). 



Cliamcerrhous apud Bonaparte, Cornpt. Rend, xxxviii. p. 8 (1854). 



Although closely allied to the Saxicolce, the Eedstarts differ sufficiently in habits, if not in 

 form, to be kept apart in a separate genus. Compared with the Saxicolce they have a shorter 

 bill and longer tail ; and compared with the Pratincolce, to which they are also closely allied, 

 they have a longer, more slender, and straighter bill, more slender legs, and a longer tail. The 

 genus Buticilla inhabits the Palaearctic, Ethiopian, and Indo-Malayan Regions, the species being 

 most numerous in the Palaearctic and Indian Regions. Six species inhabit the Western Palte- 

 arctic Region, only two of which are British. 



They are more arboreal in their habits than the Saxicolce, and approach nearer in that 

 respect to the Bluethroats and Redbreasts. They inhabit gardens, groves, and cultivated places 

 where there are trees and bushes ; and one or two species frequent mountainous localities. They 

 are active, lively birds, feeding chiefly on insects, which they often catch on the wing like the 

 Flycatchers. They build in holes in trees or in walls, and deposit pale blue or bluish white 

 eggs, those of Buticilla titys being nearly pure white ; generally the eggs of the Redstarts are 

 unspotted, though some species lay eggs which are slightly spotted with pale rufous. They are 

 good songsters, some of the species having, however, a much better song than others. 



Buticilla phoenicurus, which I take to be the type of the genus, is a rather slenderly formed 

 bird, having a soft and blended plumage ; the bill is slender, rather depressed at the base ; 

 nostrils small, elliptical, placed in the fore part of the nasal membrane ; gape with tolerably 

 large bristles ; wings rather long, straight, the first quill short, rather longer than the coverts, 

 the second rather longer than the sixth, the third longest ; tail long, slightly rounded ; legs 

 slender, the tarsus covered anteriorly with a long plate and three inferior scutella; ; middle toe 

 with claw slightly shorter than the tarsus. 



Almost all the species belonging to this genus are richly coloured, and have the tail rufous. 



