PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 343 



The upper parts are of a uniform olive-brown, less olive on the wings and tail. 

 The inner secondaries have narrow margins of golden brown, and the major coverts, 

 terminal spots of the same hue. The forehead, lores, sides of the head and neck, 

 throat and fore-breast are of a bright tawny red, bounded on the sides of the neck 

 and breast with a narrow margin of blue-grey. The flanks are pale olive-brown, 

 and the mid-breast and abdomen white. The female is slightly less brightly 

 coloured. The juvenile fledgling plumage differs conspicuously from that of the 

 adult, being spotted and streaked with buff on a ground of ochreous brown. 

 The spots are more or less confined to the crown, where the feathers are of a dark 

 brown colour with a central area of bright buff. The feathers of the back and 

 wing-coverts are ochreous brown with shaft-streaks of buff, and narrow terminal 

 bands of very dark brown, forming more or less distinct crescents. The throat, 

 fore-breast, and flanks are buff yellow, dusky tips to the feathers giving a mottled 

 appearance, especially to the fore-breast. The abdomen is buff-white, and the 

 under tail-coverts are buff. After the autumn moult the young birds are dis- 

 tinguishable from the adults only by the slightly paler colour of the breast, 

 [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. Redbreasts are found in the British Isles, the European 

 Continent, North-west Africa, the Azores, Canaries, and Mediterranean Isles, as 

 well as in West Siberia, Transcaspia, and North Persia. Two forms of this species 

 occur in the British Isles. The Continental-redbreast, E. rubecula rubecula (L.), 

 which occurs as a bird of passage on our shores, inhabits Europe from about 

 68 north to the Mediterranean and east to West Siberia and part of Turkestan ; 

 but is replaced by other forms in the Caucasus, Corsica and Sardinia, etc., although 

 found in the Azores, Madeira, and some of the Canary Isles. The British-redbreast, 

 E. rubecula melophilus (Hart.), is resident throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and 

 also nests in the Orkneys and on Barra in the Outer Hebrides, where it has bred 

 since 1891, but not in the Uists or Benbecula. Other forms of this species have 

 been described from North-west Africa, Teneriffe, and Northern Persia. [F. c. R. j.] 



3. Migration. Resident as a species, and many individuals are stationary. 

 There seems to be almost no evidence of migration in Ireland, and in the south 

 of England the breeding birds are believed to be quite stationary. In autumn the 

 young birds scatter over the country, but they may perform nothing more than 

 local movements. In the more northerly parts of Great Britain, some at any rate 

 of the breeding birds appear to move southwards in winter. A considerable 

 autumnal passage of birds of the continental race (E. r. rubecula), presumably 



