THE BLUE-BEEAST. 313 



comprehend the places which they chiefly inhabit (that is, 

 the places in which they are produced), and the peculiar 

 matters which in those places constitute the greater part of 

 their food. Food for themselves and their young is the 

 grand necessary with birds, to which temperature and nest- 

 building are very subservient ; and many of the errors of 

 which ornithology is full, both as a science and a popular 

 employment, recreation, and source of pleasure, have arisen 

 from the elevation of minor circumstances over the major 

 ones.* 



THE BLUE-BREAST (Motocilla suecico, of Linncsus). 



Has recently been caught in the vicinity of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, and therefore it must be admitted into the list of 

 stragglers. Its characters are as follow : the crown of the 

 head and rest of the upper parts are brown, the latter tinged 

 with grey, and paler on the margins of the scapulars and 

 wing-coverts ; feathers at the base of the bill and streak over 

 the eye yellowish-white. The chin, throat, and upper part 

 of the breast, rich azure, with a silky white spot in the 

 centre ; the blue bordered beneath with a narrow gorget of 

 black, which is succeeded by another of reddish-brown. 

 Under parts, dirty white, inclining to grey. The two middle 

 tail feathers brown, the remainder having their basal half of 

 a bright ferruginous or brownish-orange colour. In the 

 female, the upper parts are paler, the chin pale azure blue, 

 mixed with black, streak on each side of the neck, and upper 

 part of the breast, black intermixed with azure blue, and 

 surrounding a large spot of white. The young are, in their 



* The Motacilla (Budytes) flava of Cuvier and continental authors, 

 is not a British bird. At the same time it is to be observed that Ray 

 gave the title of flava to the British species. But in order to avoid 

 confusion, the title ofjtava is now relinquished to the continental species, 

 the British species bearing the name of Budytes rayi, Gould. (See 

 Birds of Europe.) M. 



