268 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



border. This is followed by a broad orange-brown (rostoravge) 

 band of double the breadth ; in the centre of the blue marking is a 

 large spot of orange-brown. The most frequent aberration from 

 this marking is that in which the fine white edge on the upper 

 breast is absent, or where the orange-brown spot has a fine white 

 seam below. In other examples, again, the black border on the 

 upper breast is entirely absent, the orange-brown breast-band being 

 then of double the usual breadth ; birds marked like this have a 

 very handsome appearance. 



Further, I possess an example, also a very handsome bird, 

 in which the orange-brown colour has almost entirely supplanted 

 the blue. Even on the chin a few feathers of the former colour 

 occur among the blue ones, and very soon entirely replace the 

 latter, forming n, very intense orange-brown spot, which coalesces 

 with the broad orange-brown breast-band, only a row of isolated 

 blue feathers being left as a parting between the two. The black 

 band is entirely absent in this specimen. With the exception of 

 one bird in autumn plumage, I have not obtained a second 

 example of this kind. 



Again, examples frequently occur in which the whitish basal 

 portion of the feathers of the rust-coloured spot on the throat is so 

 large that these feathers come to have merely rufous tips, the 

 white more or less predominating. I possess a very prettily- 

 marked male with an uncommonly large spot on the throat ; 

 the latter, however, is orange-brown only in the middle, with a 

 broad white border all round. In this specimen, too, the white 

 edge of the black breast-band is very broad, and extends on both 

 sides upwards along the upper breast. This bird is one of uncom- 

 mon beauty. I possessed also two other less beautiful birds of this 

 kind in which the spot on the upper breast was very small, and, in 

 the case of one example, has but little rust colour. Both of these 

 birds I had the honour of presenting to my friend Eugene von 

 Homeyer, for the completion of his very extensive series of 

 Bluethroats. 



In very old females of this species, almost the entire marking 

 of the normally-coloured male is in rare cases repeated in the 

 spring, but the colour is fainter, and seems dusted over with a fine 

 white. In the few examples of this kind which I had the oppor- 

 tunity of examining, the lower brown band on the upper breast was 

 invariably absent. In younger females the throat is shot with 

 lightish blue ; the spot on the neck of a whity rust {weisslich 

 rostfarben) colour and terminated by abroad black band, shot with 

 blue on the upper breast, and extending upwards along both sides 

 of the neck. 



