C T A N E C U L A S U E C I C A . ^
J GaJd.andR CRuhtzrJel H Lilh.
CYANECULA SUECICA.
Red-throated Bluebreast.
MutaciHfl. ¿'ueci-w* Linn: Sysfc. Nat., tom. i. p. 336.
Currura smric», Selby, Trans. Nat. Hist Soc. Northumb.
Phanifmra ¿¡«Musa, Selby, 111. Brit. Orn., .yol. i. p. 195.
PmtdiciB* nm k e , Blyth.
CyawMfi nw r* , Brehm.
K n o w l e d g e is imparted in various ways—orally, by written characters and by pictorial representations.
Written descriptions, however accurate they may be, strike the imagination less than an oral lecture ; but
when either medium o f communication is accompanied by a faithful portraiture of the subject, another
organ, that o f sight, is brought into play, and it is at once rendered clear and intelligible. I am induced
to make these remarks because a written description, however impressively worded, could but convey an
inadequate idea o f the beauty o f the Red-throated Bluebreast, which yet, I'tru st, is satisfactorily shown in
the accompanying Plate. Had the bird been as common and obtrusive as the Robin, it would have been
unnecessary to invite special attention to i t ; but I apprehend that few o f my readers are aware that so lovely
a bird occasionally Comes to us as a visitor from the opposite shores of the Continent, where it and perhaps
one o r two more species are abundant. I say perhaps, because the birds o f this form inhabiting Germany,
trance, and Holland art- differently coloured from those frequenting Norway and Sweden: those found in
the greater portion of the Continent, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, have a patch of silvery white
in the centre of the t&ra*. while those from the countries to the northward o f those boundaries have a
similar patch o f r e d ; and a third variety or species aUo occurs, in which the throat is of a uniform
blue. By some ornith*4ngs5»is o f the latter, or at least one of them, has been considered to be a distinct
»f iheir so considering is, in my opinion, very questionable; a t the same time I
roust adroit that k k a aw f y parallel case to that of the Yellow Wagtails with differently coloured heads.
: th-risioa o f ornithologists, the red-throated bird, the true Motacilla Sueeica
o f Lmnwus, is the only one has yet gww so far out o f the ordinary route o f its migrations as to visit
England, and consequently u only one I have to describe and figure in ‘The Birds o f Great Britain.’
The first specimen recorded a» having bee* .,-..-4 in this country was shot, in May 1826, on the boundary-
'h Museum of the Literary and Philosophical Society o f that
town; a second, obtained in Dorsetshire in i was preserved in the Museum o f Mr. R. A. Cox. Plumptree
Methuen, Esq., informed Mr. Yarrell that be bad an example in his possession which had been "killed near
Birmingham; and Mr. Henry Stevenson, o f Norwich, informs me that one was picked up dead on the beach
a t Yarmouth in September 1841. “ This specimen,” he says, “ is in the collection o f J . H. Gurney, Esq.,
who has also another, killed on the 15th o f May 1856, near Lowestoft; a female in company with the latter
was not obtained. Both the above-mentioned examples have the red neck-spot, and agree in every respect
with' examples from Lapland. The Yarmouth bird is apparently adult, and the Lowestoft one nearly so ; but
the blue and red of the throat are less defined in the latter.” Doubtless many more examples have visited
this coontry than the few above enumerated; but these alone fully justify us in regarding the bird a* a
member o f our avifauna: and it is to be hoped that it wiH continue to come to our shore*, for no one of the
summer birds could be more welcome.
If we regard specimens from North Africa, Southern, Central, Northern, and E x te rn Europe, the Altai,
and India as. examples of one and the same bird, the range of the species will be very wide indeed; but this
is an open question, and I therefore coal»«* my remarks to the bird which is found all over Scandinavia,
from the Baltic to far within the arctk csrefo A * one known to Lmn«us. In ail these northern regions
t is a summer migrant, coming we know am . = In Heligoland it ammaity occurs more abundantly
;han many o f the smaller birds which dvseeod upon that isolated spot, which is as it were a stepping-stone
o r many of those species which a itwv prompts to proceed on distant pilgrimages. During my visit to
Morway, I was particularly gratified hy foaSwur thk species on the Dovrefjeld; for 1 did not at ail anticipate
he presence of so beautiful a bird at .;f> elevation, and was much surprised to learn that it sought
-to inhospitable a .region for the poqtosc breeding; hot, unlike its near all* the obtrusive Robin a
eems to shun, in the breeding-season, the present*- at man, a» if it* finery would be to o attractive «•«? v - „ -
o its destruction, as it doubtless d o e s; for ! tmcKiut! whether the old males with their beautiful Mur fonraatii
/onId be allowed to remain unmolested cither m this . *untr% or on the (ontinent. Throw — e> .>
> lie Dovrefjeld were extremely shy and warv, m much mi tbet I nwM not tell, uadi after • .» wturh
sex I had killed. The localities affected bv, ami the •,)s tb** hml it ut ittbtc to a tcrtahi m t i i t throw