There's quiet in the deep-- Above let tides and tempests rave, And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave; Above let care and fear contend, With sin and sorrow to the end. Here, far beneath the tainted foam, That frets above our peaceful home, We dream in joy, and wake in love, Nor know the rage that yells above. There's quiet in the deep. John G. C. Brainard. [Illustration: AMERICAN REDSTART. (_Setophaga ruticilla_.) Life-size. FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.] THE AMERICAN REDSTART. (_Setophaga ruticilla._) 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 fly-catching 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.