AMERICAN REDSTART. 
67 
here and there with pieces of lichen, and lined with a 
very soft downy substance. The female lays five white 
egg's, sprinkled with gray, and specks of blackish. The 
male is extremely anxious for its preservation ; and, on 
a person’s approaching the place, will flirt about within 
a few feet, seeming greatly distressed. 
The length of this species is five inches, extent, six 
and a quarter ; the general colour above is black, which 
covers the whole head and neck, and spreads on the 
upper part of the breast in a rounding form ; where, as 
well as on the head and neck, it is glossed with steel 
blue ; sides of the breast below this, black, the inside 
of the wings, and upper half of the wing quills, are of 
a fine aurora colour ; but the greater and lesser coverts 
of the wings, being black, conceal this ; and the orange, 
or aurora colour, appears only as a broad transverse 
band across the wings ; from thence to the tip, they are 
brownish; the four middle feathers of the tail are 
black, the other eight of the same aurora colour, and 
black towards the tips ; belly and vent, white, slightly 
streaked with pale orange ; legs, black ; bill, of the true 
muscicapa form, triangular at the base, beset with long 
bristles, and notched near the point; the female has 
not the rich aurora band across the wing; her back 
and crown are cinereous, inclining to olive ; the white 
below is not so pure ; lateral feathers of the tail and 
sides of the breast, greenish yellow ; middle tail feathers, 
dusky brown. The young males of a year old are almost 
exactly like the female, differing in these particulars, 
that they have a yellow band across the wings which 
the female has not, and the back is more tinged with 
brown ; the lateral tail feathers, are also yellow ; middle 
ones, brownish black ; inside of the wings, yellow. On 
the third season, they receive their complete colours ; 
and, as males of the second year, in nearly the dress of 
the female, are often seen in the woods, having the 
same notes as the full plumaged male, it has given 
occasion to some people to assert, that the females sing 
as well as the males ; and others have taken them for 
another species. The fact, however, is as I have stated 
