82 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



run together into a smear. Varieties of the egg are 

 common : I have one nearly white. 



BLUETHROATED WARBLER, Phcenicura suecica. 

 Since publishing some of these notes in the num- 

 bers of ' Eyes and No Eyes,' I find I have to include 

 this rare British hird in the Somersetshire list, on 

 account of one specimen in the Albert Memorial 

 Museum at Exeter, which was labelled as having 

 been killed in Somersetshire. I wrote to the Curator 

 of the Museum for further information about this 

 specimen, but his answer did not throw much light 

 on the matter, all the information he could give me 

 being that it was killed in Somersetshire in 1856, 

 and formed part of the collection of the late F. W. L. 

 Ross, Esq., of Topsham, Devon. 



This is a migratory species, going northward in 

 summer, at which time it is common in many 

 countries of Europe much further northward than 

 England, even as far as Finland ; but its usual 

 course of migration being to the eastward of Eng- 

 land, only a few occasional stragglers appear : speci- 

 mens have, however, been noticed in many counties, 

 amongst others in the neighbouring counties of 

 Devon and Dorset. In the Isle of Wight this bird 

 appears occasionally to remain throughout the year, 

 and may even breed there.* 



* See notes by Captain Hadfield in the ' Zoologist' for 

 1865 and 1866. 



