on Dr. Jerdon's ' Birds of India' 17 



514. Cyaneculasuecica* occurs also at Tientsin (Swinhoe). 

 Captain Hutton says (J. A. S. B. xvi. 780) that the race which 

 is a summer visitor at Kandahar has " no red spot on the blue 

 throat." Dr. Bree remarks (B.Eur, ii. p. 12) that I referred the 

 Indian bird "to the white-spotted variety." Surely I never made 

 such a mistake ! In the paper from which he quotes a passage I 

 distinctly assert, of the Indian race, that " its pectoral spot is 

 always rufous instead of white " (J. A. S. B. xvi. p. 135). And 

 again (Ann. Mag. N. H. 1843, xii. p. 100) I have stated that 

 " all have the central mark of the breast rufous and not white." 

 These statements should be sufficiently explicit, Mr. Gould 

 assures me that Indian specimens run smaller than those of 

 Europe. They appear to be identical with C. dichrostei nii, Cab. 

 (Mus. Hein. 1850, i. p. 1, note) and C. orientalis, Brehm (J. 

 f. 0. 1854, p. 33). 



Dr. Jerdoti remarks, with regard to the present species, that 

 I would class the Nightingale with the Robins, while he thinks 

 that it would " associate more naturally " with the Calamoher- 



* Nearly all ornithologists have taken it for granted that the Motacilla 

 succica of Linnaeus is the form having a white spot in the middle of the 

 blue breast. This is not the case, the true M. suecica being expressly 

 stated (Syst. Nat. 12th ed. i. p. 336) to be ''pectore ferrugineo," a character 

 possessed by all the Swedish examples we have ever seen. It follows 

 therefore that the Motacilla caruUcula of Pallas (Z. R.-A. i. p. 480) is 

 sti'ictly synonymous with M. suecica. The form with the white spot 

 was figm-ed as Sylvia cyanecida, Meyer and AVolf (Tasch. deutsch. "\'ogelk. 

 1822, i. p. 240), and that with the entirely blue breast as S. icol/l, Brehm 

 (Lehrb. Europ. Yogel, 1823, i. p. 344, pi.). But Meyer and Wolf cer- 

 tainly did not regard the white-spotted bird as distinct from M. suecica, 

 L., and therefore their name " cyanecula " cannot be permitted to stand. 

 The name next in point of date, and solely applicable to the white- 

 spotted form, is <S'. leucocyanea, Brehm (Handb. Nat. Vog. Deutschl. 1831, 

 p. 353) ; and this, accordingly, ought to be adopted for it, as it has been 

 by that author in his latest article on the subject (J. f. O. 1854, pp. 33- 

 30). In a paper by Dr. Altum on the Bluethroats (Naumannia, 1855, 

 pp. 166-170, pi.) he expresses an opinion that there is only one species, 

 and endeavours to show by figures that the various forms are only phases 

 through which each individual successively passes. He does not, how- 

 ever, accoimt for the fact that in ScandinaA-ia the white-spotted is un- 

 known, except perhaps as a straggler, while that which breeds in Hol- 

 land and Germany as constantly never assumes the red spot. 



N. S. VOL. III. C 



