RED-SPOTTED BLUETHROAT 305 



flew into the Government schoolyard at Mountain. It had a loud 

 clear call somewhat like that of the water thrush, but I did not hear 

 it sing. I had only a brief look at it, but it was close, not more than 

 15 feet away, and I was able to see the brilliant blue patch on the 

 throat and the characteristic shape of the tail, though the bird did 

 not remain still. I had no idea what the bird could have been until 

 some weeks later when I received a copy of E. W. Nelson's 'Report 

 Upon Natural History Collections Made in Alaska/ when I recog- 

 nized it from the plate on page 220. I am sure it could have been 

 no other bird. On three subsequent occasions I saw birds with a 

 similar manner and call within a short distance of Mountain Village."] 



As so little is recorded about the habits of the bluethroat in Alaska 

 we must rely upon observations on the well-known western form in 

 northern Europe, where there is no reason to suppose that the be- 

 havior or habits differ in any essential way from those of the eastern 

 race. 



The bluethroat would better merit the name of "northern nightin- 

 gale" than the red-winged thrush, to which this title has been applied, 

 for not only is it actually a close relative of the nightingale, but it 

 has a fine and varied song and can hold its own with the best song- 

 sters anywhere. As might be gathered from Grinnell's experience, 

 it is a bird of the Arctic willow and birch scrub, and in Europe and 

 Asia it is one of the common and characteristic passerines of the far 

 north and is found breeding from sea level wherever suitable ground 

 occurs. It is found principally in swampy localities, though probably 

 not so much from any special attachment to wet ground as such as 

 because it is here that it finds the sort of scrub vegetation that it 

 delights in. Its rich and musical song, pleasantly contrasted with the 

 cheerful but much simpler performance of the Lapland longspur, 

 enlivens the lonely and monotonous — yet to the naturalist fascinat- 

 ing — tundra country beyond the forest limit, where it can still find 

 sufficient cover for its liking in the water-logged hollows. In the 

 forest belt it is found among the scrub of the moorland tracts, in 

 open swampy places in the woods, and in the more luxuriant willow 

 thickets along the rivers or where the forest has been cleared around 

 farmsteads and habitations. In the most southern parts of its 

 range, as in the case of many other Arctic forms, it is only at high 

 altitudes that the red-spotted bluethroat finds congenial conditions, 

 so closely is the association with an Arctic or sub-Arctic type of 

 habitat ingrained in its makeup. Yet the structurally identical 

 white-spotted bluethroat of temperate Europe is mainly a lowland 

 bird. 



Courtship. — The display of the bluethroat has been described by 

 several observers. In the characteristic display posture, which may 



