occurs at Tangiers. Mr. A. C. Smith saw it in Portugal
frequenting the very heart of Lisbon, and it is abundant in
Spain, haunting the towns and villages in autumn and winter,
and repairing to the hills to breed. Within the limits just
traced it is a well-known summer-bird in most parts of
Europe, choosing cities for its residence equally with high
mountains, and its adaptability to such varied conditions of
life, as is exemplified thus, and also by its so constantly and,
for a migrant Warbler, so exceptionally wintering on our
coasts, is doubtless a reason for the increased and ever
increasing territory it now occupies.
The manners and food of this bird are somewhat similar
to those of the common Redstart. Its nest, built of grass,
moss and a few dead leaves, and lined with hair or wool, is
placed in the cleft of a rock, under a heap of stones or, in
towns and villages, in the hole of a wall, or the roof of a
house or church*. The eggs are five or six in number, of a
pure, shining white, and measure from ‘85 to "7 by from ‘61
to •55 in. The female frequently has two broods in the
season. The song of the male, according to Bechstein,
“ contains a few high, clear notes, which may he heard from
an early hour in the morning till night. The bird is always
gay and active, shaking its tail at every hop, and continually
uttering its peculiar call-note.”
Mr. Gatcombe, who for more than twenty years has noted
the regular appearance of this species in the neighbourhood
of Plymouth, informs the Editor that it generally arrives
about the first week of November and remains till the end of
March or beginning of April. “ The birds,” he says, “ frequent
the rocks along the coast just above highwater-mark,
now and then hopping on the grass on the top of the cliffs,
like Wheatears, hut seldom perching on a bush or twig.
Quarries near the sea and stone-walls of any kind are very
attractive to them, and I have also seen them on church
towers and flitting among the tombstones in churchyards,
taking insects like Flycatchers. I once took from the gullet
of one an example, about an inch long, of Ligia oeeanica
* M. Gerbe mentions a nest built on a locomotive steam-engine.
a crustacean often seen running on rocks and sea-walls.
During the first week after their arrival they remain in
company hut then disperse. A favourite haunt is seldom
without its Redstart, and should one he killed another soon
takes its place. Although restless and rather shy, they seem
to be easily trapped, and are sometimes caught with birdlime.
Most of those visiting us are the young of the year
in their brownish-grey dress, and out-numher the old males,
with the black throat and white alar patch, by twenty to one.
This I have also observed to he the case with those exposed
in the markets on the continent in autumn, for among the
many I have at different times seen I have detected only one
old male. In plumage they vary considerably. I have obtained
them with the throats black, hut without any white
alar patch, and again, with the white pretty strongly marked
and not a trace of the black, hut this last condition is rare,
and seems to me very strange, for the black almost always
appears before the white. Old males are scarce, as already
said, and are very shy compared with younger males shewing
the black throat but no white, while these again are scarcer
than the young of the year. I believe that the old male
never loses the black throat and white alar patch when once
acquired; but the autumnal plumage, being long and tipped
with grey, partially obscures the black throat, though adding
to the extent of the alar patch : the tips wearing off towards
spring, the black throat is again revealed. Indeed, hut for
these slight changes the old male would differ very little in
summer or winter. In very old birds the hack is darker. I
have never known the Black Redstart remain to breed in this
neighbourhood, hut an old male, which I suspect had been
wounded, frequented the same locality for two whole winters,
and I think did not leave it during the intervening summer.”
In the adult male, the hill is black, the irides blackish-
brown : frontal hand and lores black ; top of the head, neck
and hack, dark bluish grey ; wing-coverts and quills greyish-
black, the former edged with lighter grey, the secondaries
and tertials white on the outer edges ; rump and tail-coverts
bay; tail hay, tipped with blackish-brown, except the two
v o l . i . x x