TITHYS REDSTART. 
77 
ruins; whence it continually pours forth its lively song, which, 
beginning with the dawn, hardly ends with daylight. Its 
vocal powers are said to be far inferior to those of the com¬ 
mon Redstart, both in quality and compass. 
This little bird is restless and shy, and although seeking 
inhabited places, such as cities and towns, appears to do so 
more on account of the elevated objects such places afford 
than from any sociability of character, as they never descend 
from their elevated station, nor appear even in crowded cities 
to take much notice of, or to be at all molested by, the noise 
and bustle below. 
The spring and summer are passed by them in these 
lofty abodes ; and in such places of concealment and safety 
as rocks and edifices afford, they bring up their young fami¬ 
lies. To this mode of nidification the present species of 
Redstart is even more attached than the former one, and 
its nest is more commonly deposited among the broken walls 
of a ruin, about the tower or spire of a church, or beneath 
the tiles of a house, than in any other situation. In rocky 
country they are found in fissures and crevices, and in holes 
of rude walls. 
The nest of this species is rather on a large scale, and con¬ 
structed of dry stalks and grasses, and fibrous roots of plants, 
closely matted together ; the inner lining is hair, or feathers. 
The eggs, which are pure white, are from five to seven in 
number, and the young are hatched after thirteen days’ incu¬ 
bation. , The nestlings are fed with flies, gnats, spiders, and 
their eggs, chrysalidee, and the larvae of such insects as fre¬ 
quent walls and rocks. The song of the male bird is some¬ 
what silenced during the period when the cares of the family 
engage his attention, although at other times incessant. At 
this period the parent birds are very restless and clamorous, 
and frequently repeat their cry of Jid-Jid, tack-tack! These 
notes are differently pronounced from those of the common 
VOL. ir. 
G 
