RUTICILLA PHCENICURA.

Redstart.

Motacilla Phenicurus, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. Daosor
Sylvia Phenicurus, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. > Hii,
Ruticilla, Briss. Orn., tom. iii. p. 403.
Phenicura ruticilla, Swains. Class. of Birds, vol. ii. p. 240.
muraria, Swains. and Rich. Faun. Bor.-Am. Birds, p. 489.

Ruticilla phenicura, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., tom. i. P. 296, Ruticilla, sp. 1.

phenicurus, Macgill. Hist. Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 305, and vol. iii. p.
Erithacus phenicurus, Degl. Orn. Eur,, tom. i. p. 502.

Wuar handsome little bird is that we see in the sunny orchard when the apple is in blossom? What is the
little active creature we observe descending to the ground from the pollard in the shady part of the lane ?
What bird, with a trembling fiery-red tail, is that seen in the trim garden of the palace? It is the Redstart,
one of our spring migrants, which has lately crossed the Mediterranean, and passed through Spain and
Portugal to spend the summer in England and Scotland, but not in Ireland. No comet was ever more true
to its appointed time; for, if unmolested, the same individuals return year after year to the identical spot
where they have previously bred and reared their young, and again retire with a degree of regularity which
surprises us. With a knowledge of this fact, should we not afford every protection to so pleasing an orna-
ment to our grounds while it remains with us ?—should we not cherish it as we do the cowslip and the
primrose ? or value it is highly as we do a caged Canary or a Bullfinch? Yet this is not done ; and the
bird in many parts of the country has become shy and distrustful, from a want of confidence in our friend-
ship. As the knowing Sparrow avoids a person with a gun, so does the male Redstart keep aloof from our
presence; for he instinctively knows that the beauty of his gay dress will attract our attention, to bis own
destruction.

That the Redstart could be rendered tame and familiar there can be little doubt; for no one of the
smaller birds approaches so near to our dwellings for the purpose of breeding. Strange indeed are the
places it frequently selects as a depository for its nest. In the forest it is a small hole in a tree; in the
village lane, a hollow space in a pollard oak; in the garden, the cankered apple-branch, or between the
upright hoarding of the tool-house. These, however, are not the only places ; for the bird courts our
familiarity still more closely. In 1862 I was shown a nest in the small square space in the wall of a forcing-
house, belonging to the Duchess of Sutherland, at Cliveden, which contained the cogged wheels of the
contrivance for opening and shutting the lights; and there the bird continued to sit on her egos, neither
the working of the wheels nor the presence of those who had occasion to pass through the house, and
whose shoulders, from the narrowness of the space, must frequently have been within six inches of the nest,
disturbing her equanimity during the fortnight she was engaged in the task of incubation. A still more
strange place of deposit was also seen at Cliveden—the midst of a box of croquet-balls in the orangery. In
the Rev. F. O. Morris’s ‘History of British Birds,’ we are told that a Redstart has been known to place
its nest in a watering-pot, another in an inverted flower-pot; and Bishop Stanley mentions that he had
known a nest “built on a space between the gudgeons or narrow upright iron on which a garden-door
was hung, the bottom of the nest resting on the iron hinge ; it must ce been Se time the door
was opened. Nevertheless there she sat, in spite of the inconvenience and publicity, eetosd as she
was to all who were constantly passing to and fro.” The same situations, continues Mr. Morris, if the birds
be undisturbed, are resorted to from year to year. One pair have been known to pom Siaite same garden
for sixteen seasons in succession; and a pair resorted for four successive years to the ventilator of a stable.
Mr. Weir informed Macgillivray that ‘‘ about a mile from Bathgate, in Linlithgowshire, there are three cots
tages belonging to the Earl of Hopetown, within a few yards oe public road, where, a the Sete of a
hole in the gable of one of them, about the middle of May eo a pair of Hieiiate oe up their residence
and reared their young. And, what is very astonishing, a pair built . the same situation in the simmer _
1837, although a weaver had taken possession of the house, a had from five coe in ue ae
ten at night three looms in continual operation yan twelve feet of the nest, which was in the inside of a
garret, and only a few open planks between them.

From the above records it will be seen that while on the one hand a oe is extremely shy, on the

rare ae es es oe eh it is naturally timid, it does not hesitate to enter our very
glen it - yey atnilian and Be gee 4 3 : oe Surely, then, the remark I have made about
dwellings for the purpose of breeding and rearing its young. y, ,

extending to it the hand of friendship is not inappropriate.