tribe are silent. These birds are caught in autumn by snares
baited with berries.”
The beak and irides dark brown ; over the eye a pale
streak : the top of the head, all the upper surface of the body
and wings, uniform clove-brown ; outer edges of the wing-
feathers lighter brown : the two middle tail-feathers clove-
brown throughout their whole length ; all the other tail-feathers
have the basal half bright chestnut, the distal half
nearly black: chin, throat, and fore part of the neck and
upper part of the breast, ultra-marine blue, with a spot in
the centre, which in some specimens is pure white, but in
very old males is red ; below the blue colour is a black bar,
then a line of white, and still lower down a broad band of
bright chestnut: belly dirty white; flanks and under tail-
coverts light reddish brown ; legs, toes, and claws, brown.
The whole length of the bird six inches. From the carpus
to the end of the longest quill-feather, two inches and seven-
eighths : the first feather very short; the second equal to the
sixth ; the third, fourth, and fifth nearly equal in length, but
the fourth the longest in the wing.
Females resemble the males in the uniform colour of the
upper parts ; the tail-feathers not so bright: the chin and
upper part of the throat white, bounded below by a crescentshaped
patch of blue mixed with some black, the horns of
which are directed upwards, encircling the white ; below the
blue colour the breast is pale reddish brown : belly and flanks
dull white. Some old females have the blue and white almost
equal in colour to that of the males.
The young in their first feathers resemble the young of the
Redbreast.
Young males after their first moult resemble adult females
; the blue colour increasing by degrees on the chin,
sides of the neck, and throat, till the white is reduced to a
central patch.
T H E REDSTART.
Sylvia pluenicurus,
Motacilla ,,
Phænicura ruticilla,
Sylvia pheenicurus,
Phænicura ruticilla,
Sylvia pheenicurus,
The Redstart, P enn. Brit. Zool. vol. i. p. 500.
,, M ontagu, Ornith. Diet.
,, B ewick, British Birds, vol. i. p. 246.
,, F i.em. Brit. An. p. 68. .
„ Selby, Brit. Ornith. vol. i. p. 191.
„ J enyns, Brit. Vert. p. 104.
,, G oui.d, Birds of Europe, pt. vi.
Bec-Jin de murailles, Temm. Man. d’Ornith. vol. i. p. 220.
T he R e d s t a r t is a summer visiter that comes to this
country from the south, and proceeds both to the westward
and northward. It is not very numerous, and in some localities
is rather rare. It makes its appearance in the southern
counties of England generally about the second week in
April, arrives in the neighbourhood of Carlisle by the third
week, but does not reach the southern part of Sweden till
the end of the month : and the character of the season exer