Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/179

Rh from the almost universal plan of house-feeding the cows, and is to the advantage of the Black Redstart, for flies and other insects swarm. The male occasionally, when flying from one spot to another, finishes its flight with wings thrown up and tail somewhat spread. Seen thus against a dark background it is a pretty object, the red tail being very conspicuous. Although more than one male was located within easy earshot of my bedroom window in Dinant, it was only in the very early hours of the day—before the dog-carts and trolleys and long, narrow country carts began their frightful rattle and din on the sharp-edged rough stones with which the streets are so vilely paved—that I could hear the song well. But if you are awake at dawn, while it is yet too dark to see the birds, you can hear the song to perfection. The song of one bird, written down there, was sometimes "chy wy wy wy wy (quickly) chee e eo," or "chich wich wich tich (quickly) itchyty (confused and internal) cheeo weo dee" (clear and sweet). It is, perhaps, the crystal clearness and brightness of the song, with its rather shrill tone, which makes this pure, sweet song carry so far. And it is this characteristic purity and clearness which constitutes its individuality. It is probable that two broods of young may be reared by some pairs. On June 4th full-fledged young sat with quivering, hardly fullygrown tails, on a heap of ancient stones piled up in an angle between the Norman church and the wall in the neglected churchyard at Hastière.

Erithacus rubecula.—A good many seen and heard in the woods; also some in the gardens at the back of the Casino at Dinant, which include a piece of the steep wooded rocky hillside.

Daulias luscinia.—Could be heard from the hotel at night and early in the morning; haunted the Casino gardens and the rest of the wooded cliffs at the back of Dinant, and all possible localities. In the woods it was abundant, and really rather a nuisance sometimes when one was trying to listen to other birds. I listened in one wood to a babel of sound produced by three Nightingales, a Garden Warbler, a Robin, a Chiffchaff, and a Chaffinch, all singing at once, and not far apart. Some young birds were probably hatched by the 3rd, as I heard the sharp "whit" and the croak from one anxious pair, and the croak