48 The Red- Spotted Bluethroat. 



Family— TURD ID. F. Snh family— TURD IN Ai. 



The Red-Spotted Bluethroat. 



Cxanccula succua, LiNN. 



ALSO known as the " Arctic Bhie-throated Robin " ; it is an occasional 

 straggler to Great Britain, bnt chiefly to the sonthern and eastern coasts 

 in autnmn and spring ; it has, however, been recorded from Scotland.* 

 Seebohni gives the following account of its distribution : — 



"The Arctic Blue-throat breeds within the Arctic circle, or in the birch- 

 regions at high elevations of more southerly climes, both in Europe and Asia; in 

 the latter continent it breeds as far south as the Himalayas, and occasionally 

 crosses Behring's Straits into Alaska. The European birds pass through Central 

 and Southern Europe and Palestine on migration, and winter in North Africa as 

 far south as Abyssinia ; whilst the Asiatic birds, with the exception of those 

 individuals breeding at high elevations in the south, pass through Turkestan, 

 Mongolia, and North China, and winter in Baluchistan, India and Cejdon, Burma, 

 the Andaman Islands, and South China." 



The male Bluethroat in breeding plumage has tlie upper surface brown ; the 

 tail-coverts chestnut, the two central tail feathers dark brown, the remainder with 

 the basal half chestnut and the outer half dark brown ; a white or pale buff 

 superciliary stripe from the base of the upper mandible to some distance behind 

 the eye ; the cheeks, chin, throat and gorget glossy cobalt blue, centred with 

 chestnut, bordered with black, and then on the chest again bounded by a belt of 

 chestnut ; remainder of under parts huffish white ; the wing coverts and axillaries 

 yellower ; bill black, feet brown, iris brown. 



The female is much duller, showing none of the blue or chestnut colouring 

 of the male until old, when she sometimes more nearly resembles him in hues ; 

 the band across her chest is dark brown. 



In the autximn much of the bright colouring is lost, the new feathers being 

 broadly fringed with grey, but in the spring this bordering disappears. 



• .\bout sixtcfii or seventeen iuslances of its occurrence had been recorded up to 1S77, but in September 

 1883. cousideralile numbers were observed on tlic eastern coast (chieflv in Xorfolkl and a still greater number 

 in 1884. 



