ALPINE ACCENTOR.
ALPINE WARBLEE. COLLARED STARE.
Accentor alßinus,
Jlfotat illa alpina,
Stumus collaris,
Sturmis moritanic:
FLEMING. SELBY.
GMELIN.
GMELIN. LATHAM.
GMELIN. LATHAM.
Accentor-—A chanter—Canto, to sing—(a factitious word.) Atpinus—Alpine.
FOR want of a vernacular name for this species, I am compelled
for the present, much against my will, to adopt, as in some similar
cases, one that I by no means approve of, but T have done so only
as a temporary thing, and in hope of *a good time coming,' when
the Queen's English shall (enj oy its own again'—a consummation
much to be wished by every lover of his country's tongue.
This bird is not uncommon in Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland,
and Italy; and Temminck includes it among the Asiatic species, as a
native of Japan. It frequents the highest parts of any alpine districts,
as its name suggests; this at least in summer, but in winter it seeks
and finds a milder temperature in the warm and sheltered valleys,
and thus, like the lowly and humble in life, escapes the severest of
the storms and tempests which the lofty and the aspiring are necessarily
exposed to in the higher atmosphere in which their lot is
cast or their place is chosen: in severe weather it approaches farmyards,
villages, and houses.
One of these birds, a female, was observed in the garden of King's
College, Cambridge, on the 23rd. of November, 1822, and obtained by
the Provost, the Rev. Dr. Thackeray; another, no doubt the male,
was seen by him at the same time, both together frequenting the
grass-plats of the College garden, and climbing about the buttresses
of the venerable building. A second was shot in a garden on the
borders of Epping Forest, in the county of Essex; and a third at