426 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



THE REDSPOTTED-BLUETHROAT 



[F. B. KIRKMAN] 



This beautiful little bird (PL 44, p. 424) visits us each autumn on 

 its way to North Africa from its summer haunts in Scandinavia. 1 It 

 is on the southward migration that it is most often observed, and 

 especially in the county of Norfolk, where, on account of its compara- 

 tive rarity as a British species, it receives a warm welcome. "On 

 September 24th . . . several more bluethroats were seen and shot. 

 . . . On the 25th . . . several more bluethroats were obtained." 2 

 Each year the slaughter of this and other little migrants goes merrily 

 on without check or serious rebuke, and is carried to an extent for 

 which no reasonable excuse, on scientific grounds, can be made. 



The contrast between its winter abode in the semi-tropical 

 countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and its 

 summer abode in the far north is striking. It is in the latter that 

 it passes the season of courtship, and often in sight of melting snow. 

 Its favourite nesting-places are among the moss and lichen-clad 

 hummocks or the stunted bushes of Scandinavian marsh land and the 

 Russian tundra. 3 In these wild and somewhat desolate scenes its 

 bright blue breast, with the red star burning in its centre, are as 

 grateful to the eye as its song is to the ear. In Norway the bird is 

 said to take the place of our robin, the latter being there very shy 

 and retiring, and to be found usually in the forests. 



In many respects it resembles the robin ; in its form, its nervous 

 quick actions, its nesting habits, and, as we shall see presently, in its 

 love displays. Again, like the robin, though occasionally hawking 

 for flies in the air, it seeks its food, worms and insects, chiefly on the 



1 See the "Classified Notes" under Distribution. 2 British Birds, ii. p. 201. 



3 The birds that visit us on migration appear to come from the central mountain ranges of 

 Norway, those in Sweden and North Russia belonging to another sub-species (C. svecica svecica), 

 but they are here considered together under the head of red-spotted bluethroat. See Hartert, 

 Vogel der PalciarktiscJien Fauna, i. p. 745. 



