20 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
kind which has to be learnt and listened for in the 
great spring chorus by the stream-sides, and is then 
always delightful to hear again year by year. The 
most characteristic markings of the cock bird are 
his black cheeks and throat, his white forehead, 
and above all his long, bright reddish-brown tail, 
which he flirts and quivers in a most characteristic 
fashion as he watches events and goes about his 
active business. Just as Wheatear means white- 
rump, so Redstart means red-tail, from the old 
English word. There is an equally handsome 
kindred species, the Black Redstart, which is as 
common and familiar round the Alpine villages 
and chalets in Switzerland, as the Robin is about 
houses in England, and must be known to almost 
every visitor to that country who cares to study 
birds at all. For no evident reason, this fine black- 
breasted Redtail never comes to nest on this 
side of the North Sea, as his brother does. But he 
turns up sufliciently frequently enough in the 
southern and western counties in autumn, when 
he has lost his reckoning on migration between 
Northern and Southern Europe, to be always worth 
watching for at those seasons as a rare and interest- 
ing visitor. 
