CYANECULA SUECICA.
Red-throated Bluebreast.

Motacilla Suecica, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i, DeOoOS
Curruca suecica, Selby, Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Northumb.
Phenicura suecica, Selby, Ill. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 195.
Pandicilla suecica, Blyth.

Cyanecula suecica, Brehm.

 

KNOWLEDGE 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 of communication is accompanied by a faithful portraiture of the subject, another
organ, that of sight, is brought into play, and it is at once rendered clear and intelligible.

to make these remarks because a written description, however unpre

Tam induced
essively worded, could but convey an
inadequate idea of the beauty of the Red-throated Bluebreast, which yet, I trust, 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 it; but I apprehend that few of 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 or two more species are abundant. I say perhaps, because the birds of this form inhabiting Germany,
France, and Holland are 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 throat, while those from the countries to the northward of those boundaries have a
similar patch of red ; and in Russia a third variety or species also occurs, in which the throat is of a uniform
blue. By some ornithologists each of the latter, or at least one of them, has been considered to be a distinct
species ; but the propriety of their so considering is, in my opinion, very questionable; at the same time I
must admit that it is a nearly parallel case to that of the Yellow Wagtails with differently coloured heads.
Whatever may be the ultimate decision of ornithologists, the red-throated bird, the true Motacilla Suecica
of Linnzeus, is the only one which has yet gone so far out of the ordinary route of its migrations as to visit
England, and consequently is the only one I have to describe and figure in ‘ The Birds of Great Britain.’

The first specimen recorded as having been killed in this country was shot, in May 1826, on the boundary-
hedge of Newcastle town-moor, and is now in the Museum of the Literary and Philosophical Society of that
town ; a second, obtained in Dorsetshire in 1836, was preserved in the Museum of Mr. R. A. Cox. Plumptree
Methuen, Esq., informed Mr. Yarrell that he had an example in his possession which had been killed near
Birmingham; and Mr. Henry Stevenson, of Norwich, informs me that one was picked up dead on the beach
at Yarmouth in September 1841. <‘‘This specimen,” he says, ‘is in the collection of J. H. Gurney, Esq.,
who has also another, killed on the 15th of May 1856, near Lowestoft ; a female in company with the latter
was not obtained. Both the above-mentioned examples have the ved 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 country than the few above enumerated; but these alone fully justify us in resorting the bird as a
member of our avifauna ; and it is to be hoped that it will continue to come to our shores, for no one of the
summer birds could be more welcome.

If we regard specimens from North Africa, Southern, Central, Nonthemn, and ae Europe, the Altai;
and India as examples of one and the same bird, the range of the ce wall be oy wide ee ; but is
is an open question, and I therefore confine my remarks to the bird which is found all over Scandinavia,
from the Baltic to far within the arctic circle—the one known to Linneus. In all these northern regions
it is a summer migrant, coming we know not whence. In Heligoland it Se ee more abundantly
than many of the smaller birds which descend upon that isolated spot, ee 18 as it were a stepping-stone
for many of those species which nature prompts to proceed on distant ipligemages. During my mt to
Norway, | was particularly gratified by finding this species on the Dovrefjeld 5 for I did not at all anticipate
the presence of so beautiful a bird at such an elevation, and ess Ce surprised to learn a it eeu
so inhospitable a region for the purpose of breeding; but, like Us near ally the Se Robin, it
seems to shun, in the breeding-season, the presence of man, as if its finery nto hevice attractive and lead
to its destruction, as it doubtless does ; for I question whether the old males ae their Dee blue breasts
would be allowed to remain unmolested either in this country or on the Content: Those aa by en
the Dovrefjeld were extremely shy and wary, so much so that I could not tell, until after examination, which

sex I had killed. The localities affected by, and the actions of this bird resemble to a certain extent those
x (@ iS . Z: c : ‘ 7?