Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/333

Rh R E D R E D 315 vidual keeping its own distance from the next : all, how- ever, pressing forward on their way to cross the Channel. On the European continent the migration is still more marked, and the Redbreast on its autumnal and vernal passages is the object of hosts of bird-catchers, since its value as a delicacy for the table has long been recognized. 2 But even those Redbreasts which stay in Britain during the winter are subject to a migratory movement easily per- ceived by any one that will look out for it. Occupying during autumn their usual haunts in outlying woods or hedges, the first sharp frost at once makes them change their habitation, and a heavy fall of snow drives them towards the homesteads for such food as they may find there, while, should severe weather continue long and sustenance become more scarce, even these stranger birds disappear most of them possibly to perish leaving only the few that have already become almost domiciled among men. On the approach of spring the accustomed spots are revisited, but among the innumerable returning deni- zens Redbreasts are apt to be neglected, for their song not being powerful is drowned or lost, as Gilbert White well remarked, in the general chorus. From its abundance, or from innumerable figures, the Redbreast is too well known to need description, yet there are very few representations of it which give a notion of its characteristic appearance or gestures all so suggestive of intelligence. Its olive-brown back and reddish -orange breast, or their equivalents in black and white, may be easily imitated by the draughtsman ; but the faculty of tracing a truthful outline or fixing the peculiar expression of this favourite bird has proved to be beyond the skill of almost every artist who has attempted its portraiture. The Redbreast exhibits a curious uncertainty of tempera- ment in regard to its nesting habits. At times it will place the utmost confidence in man, and again at times shew the greatest jealousy. The nest, though generally pretty, can seldom be called a work of art, and is usually built of moss and dead leaves, with a moderate lining of hair. In this are laid from five to seven white eggs, sprinkled or blotched with light red. Besides the British Islands, the Redbreast (which is the Meta- cilla rubecula of Linnosus and the Erithacus rulccula of modern authors) is generally dispersed over the continent of Europe, and is in winter found in the oases of the Sahara. Its eastern limits are not well determined. In Northern Persia it is replaced by a very nearly allied form, Erithacus Jiyrcanus, distinguishable by its more ruddy hues, while in Northern China and Japan another species, E. akahige, is found of which the sexes differ somewhat in plumage the cock having a blackish band below his red breast, and greyish-black flanks, while the hen closely resembles the familiar British species but both cock and hen have the tail of chestnut-red. A beautiful bird supposed to inhabit Corea, the Sylvia komadori of Temminck, of which specimens are very scarce in collections, is placed by some writers in the genus Erithacus, but whether it has any very close affinity to the Redbreasts does not yet seem to be proved. It is of a bright orange-red above, and white beneath, the male, however, having the throat and breast black. (A. N.) REDDITCH, a town of Worcestershire, is situated on an eminence near the Warwickshire border, 1 6 miles south- west of Birmingham by the Midland Railway. The church of St Stephen, a handsome building in the Decorated style, erected in 1854-55, contains some good stained-glass windows. A public cemetery was formed in 1854. Among the public buildings are the county court, where special sessions are held, and the literary and scientific institute. In the neighbourhood are the remains of Bordesley Abbey, founded by the Cistercians in 1138. The town is an important seat of the needle manufacture. The urban 1 It is a very old saying that Unum arbustum non alit duos Erithacos one bush does not harbour two Eedbreasts. 2 Of late years an additional impulse has been given to the capture of this species by the absurd fashion of using its skin for the trimming of ladies' dresses and ' ' Christmas cards. " sanitary district (area about 926 acres) had a population of about 7871 in 1871, and of 9961 in 1881. REDEMPTORISTS or LIGUOEIANS. See LIGTTOKI, vol. xiv. p. 635. RED RIVER. Three at least of the many Red Rivers of the world deserve to be mentioned, (1) the Red River or Fleuve Rouge, the Songcoi or Thao of the Anamese, the Hoang-Kiang of the Chinese, which flows through the heart of TONG-KING (g.v.) ; (2) the Red River which rises in the Stake Plain in Texas (U.S.), passes through a magnificent canon 100 miles long, and from 200 to 1000 feet deep, and furnishes a navigable channel of 1200 miles before it reaches the MISSISSIPPI (q.v!) ; (3) the Red River of the North, a somewhat smaller stream, which, rising in Elbow Lake (so called from its shape) in Minnesota (U.S.), not far from the sources of the Mississippi, crosses into Canada at Pembina, and falls into Lake Winnipeg, after a course of 565 miles (110 in Canada). The Red River of the Mississippi presents the physical geographer with a phenomenon nowhere reproduced on the same scale, a great raft of timber and driftwood, which, in spite of the labours of Captain Shreve (1835-39) and General Williamson and Captain Linnard (1841-45), had by 1871 increased so as to block the channel for 45 miles between Spring Creek and Caroline Bluff. The Red River of the North is equally famous as the scene of some of the leading events in the history of the North- West. RED RIVER SETTLEMENT. In 1811 the fifth earl of Selkirk (1771-1820), who had devoted special attention to emigration as a means of providing for the surplus population of the Scottish Highlands, obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company a grant of land in what was then called the district of Ossiniboia ( Assiniboia). In 1813 a settlement was founded by his agent, Mr Miles Macdouell, on the banks of the Red River, the first fort (Fort Daer) being at Pembina. By 1814 the settlers numbered 200. The North- West Fur- Traders of Manchester (a company which was the bitterest rival of the Hudson's Bay Company till the two amalgamated in 1821) did all they could by force and fraud to break up the colony, which, by 1816, had taken up its headquarters at Fort Douglas, on the site of the present town of Winnipeg. The French-Indian half-breeds (Bois-Brules) were incited against it, and its mills and houses were burned. The earl of Selkirk, arriving on the scene, succeeded in reorganizing the community, to which the name of Kildonan was now given, after Kildonan in Helmsdale, Sutherland- shire. He found himself personally involved in a very network of hostile intrigue ; but the colony was saved, and after his prema- ture death it continued to be more or less supported by his heirs till 1824. In 1835 Lord Selkirk's territorial claims were trans- ferred to the Hudson's Bay Company, who undertook to pay the expenses incurred by the family. At that date the population of the settlement consisted of about 5000 Highlanders, Bois-Brules, English half-breeds, and retired company officials. At the transfer of territorial jurisdiction to the Canadian Government in 1869 the Bois-Brules, inder a certain Louis Riel (son of a Frenchman who had built the first mill on the Red river), revolted and declared an independent republic. Colonel (now Lord) Wolseley was de- spatched with a force of 1400 men, and without bloodshed took possession of Fort Garry on 24th August 1870. The only striking feature of the expedition was the remarkable energy with which the difficulties of transport were overcome. Riel in 1885 became the leader of another unsuccessful insurrection of half-breeds in the same region. See Halkett, Statement respecting the Earl of Selkirk's Settlement upon the Red River, London, 1817 ; G. Bryce, Manitoba, 1882 (which contains previously unpublished documents) ; " Narrative of the Red River Expedition," in Black- wood's Magazine, vols. cviii. and cix. (1871). REDRUTH, a market town of Cornwall, is pleasantly situated on the West Cornwall Railway, about 9 miles west of Truro. It is almost the centre of the mining district of West Cornwall, and, though many of the rich copper mines are now abandoned, others have proved rich in tin at greater depths, and new mines have also been opened, sufficient to render Redruth one of the most busy and important towns of the county. Within the last few years a post-office, a mining exchange, and a school of science and art have been built, as well as a new church. At the foot of Carn Brea, the unique Druidical hill, sur- mounted by masses of granite, with an ancient castle and