THE RED-START. 
142 
situations for food and water, and all their wants are 
most admirably attended to ; but the constant journey- 
ings of those parent birds that have nestlings unable to 
move away, the speed with which they accomplish their 
trips, the anxiety they manifest, and the long labor in 
which they so gaily persevere, is most remarkable and 
pleasing, and a duty consigned but to a few. 
We have no bird more assiduous in attentions to their 
young, than the red-start, ( steort , Saxon, a tail,) one or 
other of the parents being in perpetual action, convey- 
ing food to the nest, or retiring in search of it ; but as 
they are active, quick-sighted creatures, they seem to 
have constant success in their transits. They are the 
most restless and suspicious of birds during this season 
of hatching and rearing their young; for when the 
female is sitting, her mate attentively watches over her 
safety, giving immediate notice of the approach of any 
seemingly hostile thing, by a constant repetition of one 
or two querulous notes, monitory to her or menacing to 
the intruder : but when the young are hatched, the very 
appearance of any suspicious creature sets the parents 
into an agony of agitation, and perching upon some 
dead branch or a post, they persevere in one unceasing 
clamor till the object of their fears is removed ; a mag- 
pie near their haunts, with some reason, excites their 
terror greatly, which is expressed with unremitting 
vociferation. All this parental anxiety, however, is no 
longer in operation than during the helpless state of 
their offspring, which, being enabled to provide their 
own requirements, gradually cease to be the objects of 
solicitude and care ; they retire to some distant hedge, 
become shy and timid things, feeding in unobtrusive 
silence. 
The brown starling, or solitary thrush (turdus soli- 
tarius), is not an uncommon bird with us. It breeds in 
the holes and hollows of old trees, and, hatching early, 
forms small flocks in our pastures, which are seen about 
before the arrival of the winter starling, for which bird, 
by its manners and habits, it is generally mistaken. It 
will occasionally, in very dry seasons, enter our gardens 
for food, which the common stares never do ; and this 
