HM'ETHROAT. 3^5 



succica a perfectly distinct breeding-range, but the parts of 

 Europe inhabited in summer by each are separated by a wide 

 interval. Thus the first, though local, breeds generally 

 throughout temperate Europe in suital)le places from Holland 

 across North Germany, and nowhere in these countries does 

 anyone pretend to have found the second taking up its abode. 

 Then we have the southern and lower parts of Scandinavia 

 wherein no Bluethroat at all breeds ; but, as soon as we 

 reach the mosses of its subalpine and northern districts, 

 a Bluethroat appears, which is invariably the R. suecica, 

 retaining its characteristic red spot throughout the season, 

 and breeding as generally in those chilly solitudes as B. 

 leucocijana does in the lower latitudes of Holland and North 

 Germany. In the face, then, of these facts, the evidence of 

 Dr. Altum cannot be deemed conclusive, the more so as a 

 close attention to his very words, and the instructive figures 

 by which they are illustrated, shews that his bird never com- 

 pletely assumed the appearance either of /i. icolfi or of It. 

 suecica, but that it did finally possess the full characteristics 

 of R. leucocyana, to which form it no doubt belonged.^' 



The food of this bird is earthworms, insects and berries. 

 Its song, usually delivered from an exposed branch, and 

 never more efiectively than in the broad daylight of a 

 Lapland midsummer's night, is indescribably delicious and 

 varied, as may be inferred from the bird bearing in the 

 extreme north of Europe a name, signifying " Hundred- 

 tongues," which further south is given to the larger Night- 

 ingale, Its call-note is plaintive, and the cry of alarm 

 loud and harsh. On the ground, its movements are so brisk 

 and even that it has been said by good observers, among 

 them Bechstein and Mr. Blyth, to run like a Wagtail, but, 

 so far as the Editor's experience goes, and in this ho is 

 confirmed by Naumann's opinion, its progress, though much 

 more speedy, is by hop})ing like a Eedbreast, to which bird 



* Dr. Altuiii s opinion is also al)ly coutroverted in the ' G^lf versigt ' of tlie 

 Ai-ademy of Stockholm for 18(30 (xvii. p. 201) by Herr Meves, but this obser- 

 vant naturalist is certainly mistaken when he supposes B. leucocyana to be only 

 the young of R. wolji. 



