REDSTARTS. 
483 
the genus has half a dozen representatives. Among the prettiest of the summer 
migrants to Northern and Central Europe is the graceful and attractive bird 
popularly known as the firetail, or common redstart (11. phoenicurus), partial to 
parks and gardens, and on its first arrival often perching on the lower branches of 
large trees; the male possessing a very charming song. The redstart commonly 
builds in a hole in a wall, or the interior of some hollow tree, or upon a shelf in 
some outhouse; and we once found an open nest of this species placed in the top of 
a thick bush. The eggs are pale blue, sometimes slightly speckled with red; 
while the young are easily reared from the nest by hand, and are rather liable 
REDBREAST AND REDSTART (| liat. Size). 
to sport a few white feathers in the first plumage. Foraging among dead leaves 
for insects, they spend more time upon the ground than the young of any of the 
allied forms. Often rearing two broods of young during the course of the 
summer, the redstart in its flight is swift and elegant. Although the male birds 
generally sing from the branches of trees (unlike the male black redstarts), we 
have known them to sing habitually upon the roof of a house, exactly as the 
latter would have done. Leaving their breeding-ground in early autumn, stray 
birds of this species are often to be met with on the British coast at that season 
when waiting for an opportunity of taking their departure. The adult male, 
in summer, has the forehead pure white, the top of the head, scapulars, and back 
leaden grey: the rump and upper tail-coverts are bright chestnut, as is the tail, 
