1660 THE PERCHING BIRDS 



throat spotted with white, or even entirely blue without any spots at all. The 

 Arctic form of bluethroat twice annually crosses the length and breadth of Europe, 

 but it is so seldom noticed on migration through Central Europe as to have given 

 rise to suggestions of impossible distances, conjectured to have been accomplished 

 without rest. It should be observed that Mr. Gates, with whom we are disinclined 

 to agree, regards these two forms as specifically distinct. The Arctic bird reaches 

 its northern breeding grounds at the end of May, and takes up its residence in 

 willow swamps and other damp situations. Its song has been compared by Mr. See- 

 bohm to that of several other birds. ' ' His first attempts at singing are harsh and 

 grating, like the notes of the sedge warbler, or the still harsher notes of the white- 

 throat; these are followed by several variations in a louder and rather more melodi- 

 ous tone, repeated over and over again somewhat in the fashion of the song thrush. 

 After this you might fancy that the little songster was trying to mimic the various 

 alarm notes of all the birds he can remember; the chiz-zit of the wagtail, the tip-tip- 

 tip of the blackbird, and especially the whit-whit of the chaffinch. As he improves 

 in voice he sings louder and longer, until at last he almost approaches the night- 

 ingale in the richness of the melody that he pours forth. Sometimes he will sing a* 

 he flies upward, descending with expanded wings and tail to alight on the highest 

 bough of some low tree, almost exactly as the tree pipit does in the meadows of our 

 own land. When the females have arrived, there comes at the end of his song the 

 most metallic notes I have ever heard a bird utter. It is a sort of ting ting, resem- 

 bling the sound produced by striking a suspended bar of steel with another piece of 

 the same metal. The female appears to shun the open far more carefully than her 

 mate, and while Le will be perched upon a topmost spray, gladdening the whole 

 air around him with his varied tuneful melody, she will remain in the undergrowth 

 beneath him gliding hither and thither more like a mouse than a bird through the 

 branches." The nest of the bluethroat is very well concealed in the side of a 

 tussock of grass and is lined with fine roots and hair ; and the eggs are olive colored. 

 When the young leave the nest, they forage about for insects in the undergrowth, 

 peering at a stranger with the pretty wistfulness of young robins, to which they 

 bear a rough resemblance in their actions. In Spain the bluethroat is to be met 

 with in very dry situations, but that is only when the birds are on migration, and 

 the same is probably true of its occurrence in the arid districts of Ladakh. From 

 our own observations the bluethroat seems to migrate singly or in couples, but Mr. 

 Gaetke states that they arrive in flocks upon Heligoland both in the month of May 

 and in early autumn. On Heligoland they are chiefly to be found in the potato 

 fields in autumn, while in spring they frequent the gooseberry and currant bushes 

 of the gardens. We have seen bluethroats sheltering in dry scrub on migration 

 when every now and then a bird would flit out of its cover, dart upon an insect, and 

 then steal away into the recesses of the bushes, to emerge a moment after for 

 another rapid sally. On the Norfolk coast the bluethroat is well known as a Sep- 

 tember visitant, and has even appeared in considerable numbers when weather 

 stayed. We met with bluethroats in the neighborhood of the Lake of Geneva, one 

 of which, with an entirely blue gorget, frequented a garden, although most of those 

 seen inhabited reed beds in the marshes of the Rhone. The adult male has the 



