THE REDSPOTTED-BLUETHROAT 427 



ground, where, curiously enough, unlike robin, redstart, or night- 

 ingale, it is said to run " like a wagtail," as well as hop. 1 This habit 

 it shares with its congener the white-spotted bluethroat, a Central and 

 South European form, which has strayed occasionally to our shores, 

 and which has in the blue of its breast a white, instead of a red spot. 

 Commenting on the running of the latter, Naumann observes that it 

 sometimes hops so fast that its feet are scarcely visible ; it then 

 appears to run. This applies no doubt also to the red-spotted form. 

 The same observation is made of the wheatear by Miss Turner in one 

 of the sections which precede. Still Naumann definitely states that 

 both bluethroats do run, 2 in which of course they are not alone 

 among the Turdidce. The song-thrush, for instance, both hops and 

 runs. When thus running the white-spotted variety will jerk its 

 tail like a robin, and will also fan it, as does occasionally the redstart, 

 and no doubt also the red-spotted bluethroat. 3 



The bluethroat seems to have borrowed one or more of his habits 

 from each of his nearest relatives, adding to them the stamp of his 

 own personality. This is certainly true of his song. It is sung in 

 separate phrases like that of the nightingale, which it resembles in 

 some of its notes. 4 One of the phrases consist of remarkable bell-like 

 notes, which appear to be peculiar to itself. They have been com- 

 pared to the sound made by striking a metal triangle, 5 or a suspended 

 bar of steel with another piece of the same metal. 6 These notes, 

 according to Seebohm, who writes as if his statements were based on 

 personal observation, come at the end of the song, and are uttered 

 only after the female arrives, for, as in the case of the vast majority, 

 if not of all migrants, the cock reaches the breeding-place some days 

 before his mate. But this is not all. The bluethroat and here he 

 resembles not the robin, or the nightingale, but rather the wheatear 



1 Zoologist, 1865, p. 9605. 



2 Vb'gel Mitteleuropas, i. pp. 39, 48. See also Jerdon, Birds of India, ii. p. 153 ; quoted by 

 Dresser in his Birds of Europe, who notes the same fact of the red-spotted form. 



3 Bailly, Ornithologie de la Savoie, ii. p. 304. 



4 O. V. Aplin, Zoologist, 1890, p. 426. 6 P. and P. Godman, Ibis, 1861, p. 82. 

 6 Seebohm, British Birds, i. p. 272. 



