234 THE BLUE-BREAST. 



with age, and forms two longitudinal lines on the sides of the 

 neck ; no orange band ; the throat and gullet are yellowish 

 blue, edged longitudinally with a black line ; the feet are flesh- 

 coloured. 



HABITATION. When wild this species exists all over Europe*. It is a 

 bird of passage, and when returning towards the north, in the beginning of 

 April, it stops in large flights near streams, in hedges, and damp fields, 

 comes even into courts, and on the dunghills of farms, if surprised by snow 

 and a severe return of cold. In the summer it frequents those parts among 

 the mountains abounding with water ; in August it approaches cabbage 

 fields enclosed by hedges or bushes. It is very seldom that one or two 

 pairs build in our country. 



In confinement it may be let run about ; it soon grows so tame as to 

 come when called, and feed from the hand. Its rapid motions and races 

 are amusing ; but it must not be allowed to fly high enough to get on the 

 tables and furniture, as it would soon dirty them. It sings better and 

 longer when caged. The cage should be, like the nightingale's, large 

 enough for the bird not to spoil its beautiful feathers^ the tail-feathers 

 easily drop if they are rubbed. 



FOOD. When wild the blue-breast feeds on all sorts of insects ; it also 

 eats elderberries. 



In confinement it must at first be fed with ants' eggs, meal-worms, and 

 even some earth-worms. If it is kept uncaged these things must be thrown 

 upon the universal paste, which it will thus learn to relish ; but though it 

 is easily reconciled to it, ants' eggs, earth and meal-worms, must never- 

 theless be occasionally supplied, or it will soon die in decline. When 

 caged it is fed like nightingales, and on that food it will live seven or eight 

 years. It is a great eater, and can devour in a day its own weight of the 

 first universal paste, so that it mutes incessantly. It requires a constant 

 supply of fresh water for drinking and bathing : it wets itself so much that 

 it is completely drenched. I have observed for several successive years 

 that it never bathes till the afternoon f. 



DISEASES Diarrhoea and decline are its commonest disorders. The 

 treatment has been pointed out in the Introduction. 



MODE OF TAKING. I often hear it said that the blue-breast is a rare 

 bird ; that in some parts of Germany it appears only every five, or even 

 ten, years, but I can declare that this opinion arises from a want of obser- 

 vation. Since I have taught my neighbours to be more attentive to the 

 time of their passage, they every year catch as many as they please. If in 

 the first fortnight of April, up to the 20th, cold and snow return, plenty 

 may be found by merely following the streams, rivers, and ponds, especially 

 in the neighbourhood of a wood. A proper place is chosen, near the water 

 and a bush, meal and earth worms are thrown there, with limed twigs, and 

 soon these poor birds, if ever so little pushed towards it fall blindly into 

 the snare ; they also fall into white-throat traps and nightingale nets. In 



* It is rarely seen in Britain. TRANSLATOR. 



t I have made the same observation on the red-start. 



