THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 321 



133. Alpine Accentor [ALPEN-BRUNELLE]. 

 ACCENTOR ALPINUS, Gmelin. 1 



Accentor alpinm. Naumann, iii. 940. 



Alpine Accentor. Dresser, iii. 29. 



Accenteur pigot ou des Alpes. Temminck, Manuel, i. 248, iii. 171. 



This interesting native of the mountains has not considered 

 it beneath his dignity to leave his Alpine home in order to find a 

 place in the group of distinguished visitors to little Heligoland. I 

 have obtained the bird on three occasions : two individuals in 

 spring plumage in May 1852 and 1870, and one in autumn plumage 

 in October 1862. Apart from these instances, there is certain proof 

 of its having been seen on two other occasions, but the birds in 

 question could not be shot on account of their extraordinary shy- 

 ness. 



This bird is what is known as a partial migrant, performing no 

 real spring or autumn migration, but moving on the approach of 

 winter from its nesting-places, at heights of from 4000 to 6500 feet, 

 down into the valleys, and at once returning to its mountain home 

 on the cessation of cold and snow. 



Hence it is difficult to explain what could have induced the 

 visitors to Heligoland and the fourteen examples which, according 

 to Harting, have occurred in England up to 1870 to abandon their 

 lofty mountain homes, and to cross many miles of plain and ocean 

 in order to get from Switzerland to Heligoland, or from the Pyrenees 

 to England. We may perhaps assume that these birds, as well as 

 ah 1 other irregular migrants, retain a dormant migratory impulse 

 capable of being aroused by unusual circumstances, and that in 

 their case probably some obstacle or disturbance encountered at the 

 commencement of the breeding occupations has, under the stress of 

 the reproductive instinct, called forth into life the impulse to migrate 

 which has conducted them from the Alps or Pyrenees to districts 

 further north. This assumption is not invalidated by the fact that 

 several of the birds in question were not killed till late in the year, 

 for it is quite probable that they had been roving about unobserved 

 during the summer months, and were not noticed till after the 

 beginning of the shooting season. The Alpine Accentor nests in all 

 the higher mountain ranges of Central Europe from Spain to the 

 Caucasus. 



1 Accentor collars (Scop.). 



