138 
SAXICOLINtE. RUTICILLA. 
Male, 6|, 12J, 1 A. ih Female, 6^, Hi 
The Stonechat is the earliest of our summer visitants, arriving 
about the middle of March, It is generally dispersed, betaking 
itself to sandy downs, pastures, and stony slopes, both on the 
coast and in the interior. Rude stone or turf walls are favourite 
places of resort ; and it reposes at night in holes among stones, 
or in rabbit burrows. It is a very lively and active bird, hop- 
ping along with great celerity, flying low by short starts, fre- 
quently emitting its cry of chack, chack, and when standing, 
jerking its body like the bushchats. Its food consists of in- 
sects, worms, and small testaceous mollusca. It has a short, 
lively and pleasantly modulated song, which it performs some- 
times when perched on a rock, wall, or turf, more frequently 
while hovering in the air, or during its short flights. The nest, 
which is composed of grass, roots, and moss, wdth a lining of 
hair, wool, and feathers, is placed in a hole under a stone, or 
in a wail, or in the ground. The eggs, flve or six, or from four 
to seven, are elongated, oval, ten-twelfths in length, seven- 
twelfths in breadth, pale greenish-blue. Two broods are 
reared. On the southern downs, where they collect in great 
numbers in autumn, these birds are caught -with nooses placed 
between two turfs, they being esteemed delicious food. 
White-rump. Fallow-smich. Wheatear. White-tail, 
Stone-chat. Stane-chack. 
Motacilla (Enanthe, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 332. — Saxicola 
(Enanthe, Temm. Man. d’Ornith, i. 237. — Saxicola (Enanthe, 
White-rumped Stonechat, MacGillivray, Brit. Birds, ii. 289. 
GENUS XLII. RUTICILLA. REDSTART. 
Bill rather short, slender, a little depressed at the base, 
compressed toward the end ; upper mandible with its dorsal 
line slightly declinate and nearly straight, the ridge very 
narrow at the base, a slight sinus on the edges, close to the 
tip, which is slightly declinate, very narrow, and rather acute ; 
lower mandible with the angle of moderate length, the edges 
inflected, the tip narrowed to a bluntish point ; the gape-line 
straight. Mouth of moderate width ; tongue of ordinary 
length, sagittate, papillate at the base, narrow, bristly on the 
edges, with the tip slit ; oesophagus of moderate width and 
nearly uniform ; proventriculus oblong ; stomach roundish, 
elliptical, compressed, its lateral muscles rather thick, the 
epithelium dense and longitudinally rugous ; intestine of mo- 
