The Reu-Spotted Bluethroat. 49 



Young males resemble tlie female ; but nestlings are streaked with blackish, 

 and, excepting in the chestnut base to the tail, are not iinlike young Robins. 



In its habits this species much resembles the Redbreast, according to Gatke, 

 but others state that it is far more like a Chat or Wheatear in its actions ; its 

 scheme of colouring reminds me somewhat of the last mentioned bird. In 

 Heligoland it is said to frequent potato-fields in the autumn, but in the spring 

 to haunt the gooseberry and currant-bushes in gardens, or beds planted thickly 

 with cabbages, just beginning to throw out fresh sprouts. In the north however 

 it is essentially a marsh-loving bird. 



The Rev. H. H. Slater in his "Field notes in Norway" (Zoologist 1883) 

 says of the Bluethroat : — " Very plentiful on the Dovre Fjeld. At Fokstuen I 

 might have shot twenty males any day, but the females were great skulkers, and 

 seldom showed themselves. The note of this bird is remarkably varied, but may 

 be recognized by the metallic 'ting ting' with which it usually commences its 

 warble, which is just like a couple of strokes on a small high-toned triangle. It 

 also has a peculiar hurried way of singing, as if it were anxious to get to the 

 end of its song as soon as possible. At Hjerkiem it was very common also, both 

 in the birch scrub and even in the dwarf willow and juniper scrub above the 

 birch limit on the fells. I found a nest here with eight eggs, and sat down by 

 it to blow one of them. The old birds at once came up and hovered angrily 

 round me, ofteu within a yard of me, though the eggs were not at all incubated, 

 the female also quite forgetting her usual anxiety for concealment. Not only 

 they, but every other Bluethroat within hearing of this excited couple, hurried up 

 also, until I must have had about a dozen scolding within ten yards of me at 

 once ; the moment I rose, however, they all vanished, like Roderick Dhu's 

 warriors, ' where they stood.' The nest was made of the finest grasses, and 

 placed in au open space in the birch wood, under a branch of trailing juniper." 



The Bluethroat being, as already noted, au inhabitant of marshy land, it 

 usually constructs its nest either in some chance cavit}' in the side of one of the 

 many mounds or hummocks which abound on the irregular fjelds of Lapland and 

 the tundras of Siberia, or in the more swampy parts of the forest. Naturally it 

 is not easily discovered, unless by chance the incubating female is flushed from 

 her eggs. 



The nest itself is of loose construction, fashioned somewhat like that of the 

 Robin, the materials used being mostly dried grass and rootlets, the cup being 

 neatly lined with hair : the five to eight eggs have a greenish ground tint and 

 are finely speckled and marbled with rufous-brown. 



The food of this bird consists of small worms, centipedes, spiders, insects and 



