204 The Scottish Naturalist. 



On that day, and for some days previous, the wind was strong 

 S.E., and it continued so all day: weather, very thick haze, 

 approaching to fog, with a continuous downpour of rain. Mr 

 Agnew adds, "All the birds seen to-day seemed perfectly 

 bewildered." 



The bird of which I now speak is Cyanecula Wolfi, or the 

 white-spotted — sometimes spotless — form of the Blue-throated 

 Warbler. The other form, Cyanecula suecica, or Red-spotted 

 Blue-throat, is more northern in its range in Europe than the 

 bird under consideration, and hitherto, with only three excep- 

 tions, is the only species or form of the genus which has been 

 recorded in Great Britain. Cyanecula Wolfi is found over 

 Central Europe, and breeds in Holland, Germany, and south- 

 ward, and is found in winter in Spain, Italy, and the shores of 

 the Mediterranean (vide Dresser's ' Birds of Europe/ vol. i. p. 

 312); and according to Prof. Newton (Yarrell, 4th ed., vol. i. p. 

 324), has only once before occurred in Britain (vide Hadfield, 

 Zool. 1866, p. 172, where the bird recorded as " Blue-throated 

 Warbler" belongs to this form), vide Zool. 1876, p. 4956. 

 The specimen in my possession closely agrees with the bird 

 figured in Dresser's 'Birds of Europe' (vol. i. pi. 50), of which 

 he says (p. 320), "a male of C. Wolfi in rather peculiar autumn 

 plumage." I have now, therefore, to record the third occur- 

 rence of the white - spotted form (which two Dresser unites 

 under Cyanecula Wolfi) in Britain, and its first occurrence in 

 Scotland. 



Now, in connection with the distribution and rare occur- 

 rences of European or other species in Britain, I wish here to 

 say a few words. In 1875, on the 10th November, I obtained 

 a Black Redstart, Ruticilla titys, at Kincardine on-Forth, which 

 was duly recorded, and the specimen exhibited, at the Royal 

 Physical Society's meeting in Edinburgh, on the 21st February 

 1877. At that time I said, "What we have for a long time 

 considered as accidental — purely accidental — occurrences of 

 Continental species ought, in many instances, I think, rather to 

 be held as indications of extension towards the north of their 

 breeding limits on the Continent." Since then, as I will show, 

 I have somewhat modified this opinion, as I think, besides such 

 occurrences being partly due to northern extension of the breed- 

 ing range, they are also due to prevalence of easterly and south- 

 easterly winds and gales blowing the migrants more to the 

 northward than in other circumstances they would be borne. 



