342 
The Redstart 
any time of the day. Some observers say he has two distinct songs, others | 
say he has three, while still others aver that the bird has as many as five | 
or six. Gerald Thayer, I believe, is authority for the statement that about i 
his home at Monadnock, New Hampshire, the Redstarts have what he ; 
considers three comparatively constant songs, which serve as the basis 
for all other varieties of their music. | 
For my part I have found the Redstart’s song to be bewildering and ' 
difficult of identification more times than I care to admit. When in ; 
spring I find myself in a locality where Warblers are singing, if I can ) 
remain there a day or two and learn what species are in song, and watch, j 
and think hard, my memory is at length refreshed to the extent that I | 
ears the song of this bird lacks any striking characteristic, such as we j 
all readily recognize in that of many others — the Ovenbird, for instance, i 
or the Wood Thrush. | 
The nest of the Redstart is made of leaf-stalks, thin strips of bark, 
plant-down, and similar soft vegetable materials, and usually is lined with i 
fine rootlets or delicate tendrils. Apparently it is always placed in the ! 
crotch of a sapling two to fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. One 
favorite situation, in which I have often found the nest, is between a | 
small branch, little more than a twig, and the main stem of the tree, the ! 
latter perhaps as much as three inches in diameter. In such positions the ! 
nests were frequently in plain view — after they were once discovered. : 
Sometimes, however, the nest is so well hidden that it may be found only | 
after a most careful and prolonged search. ! 
The four or five eggs are white, variously blotched and spotted with I 
brown and gray, thus resembling those of the Yellow, or Summer, War- 
bler. They measure about 65 hundredths of an inch long by 50 hun- 
dredths wide. 
Last spring it became apparent that a pair of Redstarts had a nest 
hidden somewhere within the recesses of a certain limited growth of 
vision of the female in every instance when she was seen approaching. 
Meanwhile the male sang daily and hourly, and almost every ten 
minutes, from his perch on a large tree near by. Every sapling was 
searched in turn until at last the nest, hidden by leaves, came in sight, 
in a crotch twelve feet from the ground. 
‘‘The young males of this species,” Audubon notes, “do not possess 
the brilliancy and richness of plumage which the old birds display until 
the second year, the first being spent in the garb worn by the females; 
similar difficulty in remembering from year to year the Redstart’s notes, li 
It is certainly true that to any but those with particularly gifted j 
soon begin to feel sure of distinguishing the Red- : 
start’s tune with some degree of confidence. Others j 
have guardedly hinted that they have experienced || 
A Hidden 
Nest 
saplings near our summer camp on Lake Champlain. 
Spying on the birds and watching their movements 
proved fruitless, the thick foliage blotting out all 
