ROBINS, ETC. 



487 



THE REDBREAST. 



Rubythroat. 



in the middle of lonely woods, it constructs its nest of dry leaves, moss, and dead 

 grass, lined with a little hair. The eggs are white, blotched and streaked with 

 light red. When the young birds 

 are fledged, they flit about the 

 gardens and outhouses gathering 

 a variety of insects. Many of 

 them migrate in autumn, while 

 others linger to utfcer their silvery 

 notes during the dead months of 

 the year, drawing near the cottages 

 and farmhouses at the approach 

 of frost. The plumage of the male 

 robin is olive-brown above, tinted 

 with grey ; the neck, forehead, and 

 throat being bright orange, the 

 remainder of the lower-parts olive- 

 brown. The robin of the Canary 

 Islands has been classified as a 

 distinct species. 



Another beautiful species of w r arbler is the rubythroat 



(E. calliope), represented on the right side of the illustration on 

 p. 485, which makes its summer home in the extreme north of Russia and Siberia, 

 breeding among the tundras of the Arctic Circle, after the ice and snow have 

 thawed and disappeared. Mr. Seebohm says that the song of the rubythroat " is 

 very fine, decidedly more melodious than that of the bluethroat, and very little 

 inferior to that of the nightingale. When first I heard him sing I thought I was 

 listening to a nightingale ; he had his back towards me when I shot him, and I 

 was astonished to pick up a bird with a scarlet throat. The feathers were as 

 glossy as silk, and when I skinned him I thought I had rarely if ever seen so 

 beautiful a warbler. The rubythroat appears in the south of Siberia as early as 

 the beginning of April. Its nest is said to be a slight structure, and the eggs are 

 olive-grey. It is a bird of shy and solitary habits, frequenting thickets and close 

 cover, and obtaining its food chiefly upon the ground. It loses the brilliant colour 

 of the throat in confinement. It winters in the Philippine Islands, South China, 

 Burma, and Northern and Central India, occasionally straying into Europe. Jerdon 

 once met with a rubythroat on board ship a little south of Bombay, when a single 

 bird of this species took refuge on board his vessel in the month of November. 

 The adult male has the upper-parts of a uniform olive-brown ; the eyestripe and 

 cheeks being white ; while the chin and throat are glossy scarlet ; and the breast 

 ash-grey shading into bufly grey. 



The nightingale (E. luscinia) is celebrated in Western Europe 



as an incomparable songster, and has from all times enjoyed just 

 reputation for the perfection of its vocal powers. Wintering in Africa, it reaches 

 its summer home in the British Isles about the 13th of April, the males being the 

 first to arrive. Its range in the British Isles is somewhat circumscribed ; and it 

 does not breed north of Yorkshire. The nest is a loose structure of stems of grass 



Nightingale. 



