Contemporaneous with the blossoming out of the wild plum, the early Richmond cherry and a rich and diversified profusion of woodland flowers, perhaps better exemplified on this occasion by such interesting types as the little Claytonia, or spring-beauty, the rue-anemone and the trilliums, both T. erectum and grandiflorum, with perhaps a few belated blossoms of the hepatica, is the advent of this interesting little bird among us, which here in Northeastern Illinois usually plans its arrival somewhere near the closing days of the first week in May.

Its generic name, Setophaga, interpreted into plainer English, means a devourer of insects, and, were we to select from among the large and varied assortment of birds comprising the bulk of our warbler hosts a form most elegant and expressive of gayety, sprightliness, and, in a measure, frivolity, we could not go far wrong in determining upon this species so easily outclassing all others as the most brilliantly colored member of that numerously large and interesting family, the Mniotiltidae.

At first a creeper and sharp-eyed inspector of hidden crannies, we afterwards discern no less in him, and upon the slightest provocation, a tyrant on the wing, thereby proving a general adaptability to and utility in his calling at all stages of the game — a constant warfare directed against the insect horde to which he devotes himself most assiduously at all times, and it is really astonishing the amount of the minute forms of insect life these little birds will consume. So then, what at first may appear to us as clever acts of trifling weight will, upon closer inspection, prove carefully executed movements planned and carried out with the greatest precision.

Among ornithologists we find it classed as an interesting member of the group of flycatching warblers. Equally suggestive to the mind of the writer would be the name of the fan-tailed warbler, derived from its well-known habit of carrying the tail slightly elevated and partly spread.

To those who may be on the lookout for just such marked characteristics among our birds this one feature alone will serve as an excellent index in determining its proper identification.

The plainer and grayer markings of the female and immature birds may differ very considerably from the more pronounced black and white, orange-red and salmon-colored blotches of the adult male, but never so strikingly manifesting themselves in the markings of the tail which in either case may appear to the casual observer as quite similar.

Yet if we examine them more critically we will discover that they are distinctly different, the salmon-red and black-tipped feathers of the male bird being replaced by a paler reddish-yellow and grayer tipped arrangement in the case of the female. Young males have the darker markings of the tail feathers very similar to those of the adult birds, which we are told do not take on the complete dress until the third year. But the habit of constantly flitting the tail in fan-like motions is peculiar alike to all phases of this birds plumage and above all other characters serves as the greatest aid in naming it.

The very young, or nestling dress, of which little or nothing seems to have been written, bears a partial resemblance to that of the female bird, excepting that the wings are crossed by two yellowish bands, caused by the lighter tippings of the outer coverts. The yellow breast spots of the female are also wanting in this dress.

For further particulars the reader is kindly referred to the colored plate accompanying this article.

Like the robin red-breasts, the name of the Redstart seems to have been brought to America by the earlier settlers who were ever on the watch for familiar objects to remind them of former days, and, as in the case of the example just cited, wrongfully ascribed by them to a far different bird. An analogy, however, exists in the coloration of the European and American birds justifying in a measure the reason for so naming it.