94 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Mr. Archibald has taken its eggs in the last-named locality, 

 where it winters, as on other parts of our coast. During severe 

 frost the resident Stonechats are sometimes sadly pinched for 

 food. In December 1890, for example, a pair of Stonechats 

 haunted the roadside near Skinburness in forlorn condition ; all 

 the spruceness of their summer airs forgotten, they hopped 

 round us as wistfully as any Redbreast, peering pitifully out 

 of their bright eyes, their feathers ruffled out, and their wings 

 drooping despairingly, affording a striking contrast to the 

 jaunty birds that nest in the yellow gorse coverts around the 

 deep cutting that leads to Sandwith Lighthouse. When study- 

 ing this Chat during the winter months, I have been surprised 

 to see single males feeding out in the very middle of grass 

 fields; their movements seemed so unlike the usual habits of the 

 Stonechat, that some little trouble was taken to place their 

 identity beyond a doubt. 



REDSTART. 



Ruticilla phoenicurus (L.). 



Comparatively scarce in the neighbourhood of our coast-line, 

 where it is chiefly to be met with on migration, the Redstart 

 becomes numerous where timber affords it suitable nesting- 

 places. Ascham Bridge, on the Westmorland border, is one of 

 the prettiest localities that this species specially affects. It 

 straggles as far up the fells as trees or brushwood are found, 

 and breeds sparingly even on low grounds, as in the Cumbrian 

 plain, though not at any time very abundant in the west of 

 our faunal area. In autumn it occurs on migration chiefly as 

 a solitary straggler. Its soft * weet ' resounds plaintively from 

 our hedgerows, especially in the month of August, when young 

 birds are on the move. 



BLACK REDSTART. 



Ruticilla titys (Scop.). 



There seems to be no doubt that a pair of Black Redstarts 

 were really shot near Scotby in the spring of 1 876. The late Mr. 

 Dickinson states in an annotated copy of Yarrell's British Birds, 



