Perching Birds. 
75 
The eggs are olive-brown or bluish-green, clouded with reddish dots, and resemble 
some of the eggs of the Nightingale. 
The Rock-Thrush [see p. 67) has a red tail like the Redstarts, 
and the male and female are very different in colour, the male 
being slaty-black, with the centre of the back white. The 
head and throat are greyish-blue, with the rest of the under 
surface of the body orange-chestnut. The female is ashy-brown mottled with pale 
THE 
ROCK-THRUSH. 
( Monticola saxatilis.) 
margins to the feathers, and the throat is white, mottled with dark brown edges ; 
the breast and sides of the body are golden buff with dusky brown edges to 
the feathers. It is a species of Central and Southern Europe, extending to Central 
Asia and Mongolia and wintering in East 
Africa and in North-western India. It has 
been shot once in England, in Hertford- 
shire, in May, 1843. It has a fine song 
and resembles a Redstart in its ways, the 
nest being placed in the hole of a rock or 
wall, and is like that of a Chat or Redstart. 
The eggs are four or five in number, of a 
bright blue colour, with sometimes a few 
brown specks. 
The red tail of 
I HE REDSTART. this bird makes it 
( Ruticilla , 
, . , rathera conspicuous 
phcvnicurus.) 
species, as the bird 
has a way of flirting its tail up and down 
and spreading it out. It is a summer 
visitor to Great Britain, and breeds in all 
three kingdoms. Its breeding-range ex- 
tends throughout the greater part of 
Europe, north to the Arctic Circle, and 
east^to the Yenesei. It winters in West 
Africa as well as in North-east Africa and along the Persian Gulf. The male is 
recognised by its slaty grey back, white forehead, black face and throat, and orange- 
chestnut breast. The female is more of an ashy brown colour above, and has the 
sides of the face brown, the throat dull white like the abdomen, the fore-neck, breast 
and flanks sandy-brown, and the under wing-coverts and axillaries yellowish-buff. 
The winter plumage is more grey, but the summer dress can be detected below the 
grey margins of the winter plumage, for it is gained by the shedding of the latter, 
as the grey becomes abraded and the edgings disappear as spring advances. The 
young are spotted with ochreous-buff, and resemble the young of the Robin. 
The male Redstart is the first to arrive in its nesting-quarters, before the female, 
The Redstart. 
The Black Redstart. 
