AMERICAN REDSTART. 
291 
The moult of the male is double, and the voice musical like that 
of the Sylvias and Vireos, to which it is related, but sufficiently dis- 
tinct. Nearly allied to the foreign Malurus of Vieillot, as well as to 
the Indian Phcenicornis of Swainson, in which the brilliant colors 
and their distribution are very similar, but in that the tail is long, 
and unequally graduated, and the bill more robust and strongly 
notched. The nest not pendulous, neat and somewhat artful, re- 
sembling that of the Sylvias. This section, including several spe- 
cies, holds probably the rank of a genus, but requires further com- 
parison. 
AMERICAN REDSTART. 
(Muscicapa ruticilla , JL. Wilson, i. p. 103. pi. 6. fig. 6. [adult male], 
v. p. 119. pi. 45. fig. 2. [young]. Audubon, pi. 40. [in the act of 
attacking a nest of hornets]. Philad. Museum, No. 6658.) 
Sp. Charact. — Black ; belly white ; sides of the breast, base of the 
primaries and tail-feathers (the two middle ones excepted) red- 
dish orange. — Female , young , and autumnal male greenish-olive ; 
head cinereous ; beneath whitish ; sides of the breast and base of 
the tail-feathers, yellow. 
This beautiful and curious bird takes up its summer 
residence in almost every part of the North-American 
