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BREEDING OF THE BLACK IN BRITAIN A CENTURY-OLD RECORD BY GEORGE W. TEMPERLEY. IN 1916, seven years before T. A. Coward found the Black Redstart (Phcenicurus ochrurus gibraltariensis) breeding on the Sussex coast and so established what was then thought to be the first British record, F. C. R. Jourdain wrote an article in The Zoologist on the status of the Black Redstart in England as a breeding species. In that article he reviewed every alleged instance of breeding that had been reported up to that date and showed that in every such case an error in identification had been made—" with the possible exception of Hancock's .... which however requires confirmation before it can possibly be accepted." Hancock's record here referred to was published in 1874 in his Catalogue of the of Northumber­ land and Durham and reads as follows :—" In 1845, a pair [of Black ] nested in the garden of the late Rev. James Raine, the historian of Durham, in that City; and I am indebted to Mr. Wm. Proctor for their nest, which is now in my collection. An egg belonging to it was kindly presented to me by the Rev. James Raine, son of the above named gentleman." William Proctor, who gave the nest to Hancock, was the curatOr- taxidermist of Durham University Museum. He had already published the record himself, for in a " List of Birds found in the County," published as an Appendix to the Rev. G. Ornsby's Sketches of Durham, in 1846, he had written thus of the Black Redstart— " Very rare ; a nest with five eggs was taken near Crook Hall in the summer of 1845." It will be noted that this was written just one year after the event and twenty-eight years before the publica­ tion of Hancock's " Catalogue." Additional details of the occurrence are to be found in a chapter by Canon H. B. Tristram, F.R.S., of Durham, the eminent ornitholo­ gist and traveller, on the " Birds of the County of Durham " in The Victoria County History of Durham, published in 1905. Here he wrote—" In the year 1845 a pair [of Black Redstarts] built their nest on a cherry tree trained on a wall in the garden of the Rev. Dr. Raine, at Crook Hall, in the suburbs of Durham City. I regret to say that the birds were shot. The male is in the Durham Museum ; the nest and an egg were given to the late John Hancock." Further evidence is forthcoming from a letter to the late George Bolam from Canon William Greenwell of Durham, then in his 96th year, who had known both Canon Raine and Canon Tristram. It is dated "Durham, Jan. 11th, 1917" and reads—"I well remember the late Canon Raine, son of Dr. Raine, the historian of North Durham, when a boy at the Grammar School, finding the nest of the Black Redstart at Crook Hall, close to Durham, where his father lived. I have forgotten where the , its nest and egg went to. VOL. xxxix] BREEDING OF BLACK REDSTART. Ill

I find however that the bird is in the Museum of the University here, which is now in a very hopeless "condition." Efforts to trace the bird or birds have proved fruitless. The Durham University Museum collections were dispersed and such of the birds as had not already fallen to pieces from neglect were scattered. The nest and one egg, however, are still in the Hancock Collection in the Hancock Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The nest, which is typically that of the Black Redstart, though its situation, if correctly recorded, was certainly unusual, bears this label—" Black Redstart's nest taken in the neighbourhood of Durham about 12 years ago. Presented by W. Proctor, 14th June, 1855." The egg, which is also typical of the species, bears this inscription in Hancock's writing—" Black Redstart taken near Durham some years ago. Prestd. Rev. - Raine, 1855." It is evident that when Hancock wrote these labels in 1855, he did not know the exact date or place where the nest had been taken ; but by 1874, when he published the " Catalogue," he had obtained fuller information. The nest and egg have recently (February, 1945) been sent to the British Museum (Natural History) to be critically examined. The Hon. Guy Charteris, who saw them, considers that they are undoubtedly those of the Black Redstart. His comment on the nest is that it could not be that of any other bird. Thus an old record is definitely confirmed.

REFERENCES. COWARD, T. A. (1923). Brit. Birds, Vol. xviii, p. 76. HANCOCK, JOHN (1874). " A Catalogue of the Birds of Northumberland and Durham." Natural History Transactions of Northumberland and Durham, Vol. vi, p. 68. JOURDAIN, F. C. R. (1916). Zoologist, 1916, pp. 117-421. PROCTOR, WM. (1846). Rev. G. Ornsby's Sketches oj Durham, Appendix iii, p. 197. TRISTRAM, H. B. (1905). Victoria County History of Durham, Vol. i, p.178. First recorded as breeding in Britain at the Wembley Exhibition Centre, London, in 1926, the species needed the destruction of the World War II and its aftermath to properly put down roots. Now, despite its Red-listed status, Black Redstart can be seen in the very heart of some of our cities, often singing and nesting right next to passing traffic and bustling humans. Not every Black Redstart seen in Britain is of the form which breeds and winters here, gibraltariensis. The Birmingham area was one of the key breeding locations in Britain until this century, but the last survey of the West Midlands in 2016 found no breeding pairs, while there has been a similar nose- dive in Sheffield, Nottingham and Ipswich. @inproceedings{Lu2011BreedingEO, title={Breeding of the Black Redstart ochruros at a Tibetan Site, with Special Reference to Cooperative Breeding}, author={X. Lu and Dianhua Ke and Y. Guo and Shiyi Tang and Lixia Zhang and Chen Wang}, year={2011} }. This paper provides data on the breeding biology and social system of the Black Redstart Phoenicurus ochruros at a Tibetan site (4300 m elevation). Egg-laying occurred between early May and early July during which pairs bred once (10 out of 12 marked pairs) or twice (2). Clutch size varied between 4 and 5 eggs (4.56 ± 0.51 SE), but a seven-egg clutch was recorded. Incubation by the female lasted 12–14 d (13.0 ± 1.0 SE). Nestlings were provisioned by both parents for 13–18 d (16.7 ± 1.6 SE… The black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) is a small bird in the redstart genus Phoenicurus. Like its relatives, it was formerly classed as a member of the family (Turdidae), but is now known to be an (Muscicapidae). Other common names are Tithy's redstart, blackstart and black redtail. The first formal description of the black redstart was by the German naturalist Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin in 1774 under the binomial name Mottacilla ochruros. The genus Phoenicurus... REDSTART, a bird well known in Great Britain, in many parts of which it is called firetail—a name of almost the same meaning, since “start†​ is from the Anglo-Saxon steort, a tail. This beautiful bird, Ruticilla phoenicurus, returns to England about the middle or towards the end of April, and at once takes up its abode in gardens, orchards and about old buildings, when its curious habit of flirting at nearly every change of position its brightly-coloured tail, together with the pure white forehead, the... Black people in late 18th-century Britain. In October 1796, ships from the Caribbean carrying over 2,000 black and mixed-race prisoners of war docked at Portsmouth Harbour. Soon almost all of them were imprisoned at Portchester Castle. Inevitably, black people had been arriving in all parts of the British Isles, unwillingly and willingly, for over two centuries. Current estimates are that at least 10,000 lived in London, with a further 5,000 throughout the country. Black preachers abounded and at least one black church was recorded in Whitechapel. This engraving of 1784 by Richard Cosway shows the artist with his wife, Maria, and Ottobah Cugoano, who was then their servant. He later became a prominent abolitionist.