SPECIES 6. MUSCICAPJi RUTICILLA. 
AMERICAN REDSTART. 
[Plate VI. — Fig. 6. Male.] 
Muscicapa Ruticilla, Linn. Syst. i, 236, 10. — Gmel. Syst. i, 935. 
— Motacillajiavicauda, Gmel. Syst. i, 997. [female), — Le Gobe- 
mouche d'^Amerique, Briss. Orn. ii, 383, 14. PL Enl. 566, fig. 
1, 2. — Small American Redstart, Edw. 80. Id. 257. [female). 
— Fellow-tailed Warbler, Arct. Zool. ir, Ao. 301. Id. ii, A’a. 
282. — Latham, Syn.iv, 427, 18. — Arct. ZooL u, JYo. 301, [fe- 
male ).' — Peale’s Museum, JVb. 6658. 
Though this bird has been classed by several of our most re- 
spectable ornithologists among the Warblers, yet in no species 
are the characteristics of the genus Muscicapa more decisively 
marked; and in fact it is one of the most expert Flycatchers of 
its tribe. It is almost perpetually in motion; and will pursue a 
retreating party of flies from the tops of the tallest trees, in an 
almost perpendicular, but zig-zag direction, to the ground, 
while the clicking of its bill is distinctly heard, and I doubt 
not but it often secures ten or twelve of these in a descent of 
three or four seconds. It then alights on an adjoining branch, 
traverses it lengthwise for a few moments, flirting its expanded 
tail from side to side, and suddenly shoots off, in a direction 
quite unexpected, after fresh game, which it can discover at a 
great distance. Its notes, or twitter, though animated and spright- 
ly, are not deserving the name of song; sometimes they are 
weese, weese, weese, repeated every quarter of a minute, as it 
skips among the branches; at other times this twitter varies to 
several other chants, which I can instantly distinguish in the 
woods, but cannot find words to imitate. The interior of the 
forest, the borders of swamps and meadows, deep glens covered 
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