4.2 REDSTART. 
hended, according to one writer, resembles the word ‘chippoo;’ 
Macgillivray, always accurate, hkens it to the syllables ‘oi-chit.’ 
It is said to sing most in the morning and evening, and 
this is probably the case, as with other birds. It sometimes 
utters its song while on the wing, and even while flying from 
one station to another. 
The nest, which is more or less well concealed, and is 
rather loosely constructed, is built of moss, dry grass, and 
leaves, and lined with hair and feathers. It is frequently 
placed in a hole in an old wall, under the eaves of a house, 
in a hollow or hole in a tree, or even between the branches 
of one, as also against a wall, if extraneous support 1s afforded. 
One has been known to have been placed in a watering-pot, - 
others in flower-pots, and one in a hole in the ground, even 
where such a choice was not made from necessity. It is 
frequently placed close to or in the wall of a house, and that 
where persons are constantly passing, even within reach of 
the hand. Another has been known also placed on the ground 
under an inverted flower-pot; the hen bird successfully reared 
her brood, the flower-pot, which was at first unwittingly 
removed, having been replaced by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, 
who relates the circumstance in the ‘Zoologist,’ page 355. 
Bishop Stanley mentions one he had known ‘built on the 
narrow space between the gudgeons or narrow upright iron 
on which a garden door was hung; the bottom of the nest, 
of course, resting on the iron hinge, which must have shaken 
it every time the door was opened. Nevertheless, there she 
sat, in spite of all the inconvenience and publicity, exposed 
as she was to all who were constantly passing to and fro.’ 
Another has been known in like manner to sit through the 
din of three looms at work from five o’clock in the morning 
until ten at night, within twelve feet of the nest. The same 
situation, if the birds have been undisturbed, is frequently 
resorted to from year to year. One pair have been known 
to revisit the same garden for sixteen seasons in succession: 
a pair resorted for four successive years to the ventilator of 
a stable. The female is sedulously devoted to her eggs or 
young, and will sometimes suffer herself to be touched before 
flying off from the nest, if, however, they be molested she 
will forsake it; both birds indeed are most assiduous in their 
attentions to their brood, one or other of them being to be 
seen in constant motion, conveying food to them, or retiring 
in search of it. In one instance, the male bird having been 
