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2 
of the throat, breast, and flanks somewhat sparingly streaked with dull hair-brown, a few streaks being 
also on the chin and upper throat; flanks tinged with yellowish brown ; but the under wing-coyerts and 
axillaries are warm though pale vinous buff; beak dark brown; iris hazel-brown; legs black. Total 
length about 5°5 inches, culmen 0°52, wing 3°35, tail 25, tarsus 0°6. 
Female. Similar to the male. 
Young (Hampstead, near London, September 1870). Head, hind neck, back, rump, and scapulars buffy 
white, each feather bordered with hair-brown, giving a very spotted appearance; inner secondaries 
broadly margined with fulvous buff, and the larger wing-coverts broadly tipped with broad buff; under- 
parts white, slightly marked on the breast and throat with brown. 
THRouGHout the whole of Europe, as far north as about 70° N. lat., the present species is very 
generally distributed, and in most parts a common summer visitant. In Africa it is found as far 
south as the Cape of Good Hope, and in Asia as far east as Dauria. 
In Great Britain it is a common summer visitant, arriving in April or in May, and leaving 
again late in August or early in September. In all counties of England it is one of the best- 
known of our summer visitants, but is rather less numerous in Scotland. It arrives with tolerable 
regularity in the spring; and Mr. Cecil Smith informs me that he has remarked that it arrives in 
Somerset between the 2nd and 7th of May, and only once did he see one as early as the 28th of 
April. He adds that he does not think it is so common on the Channel Islands as on the main- 
land. In Ireland, Thompson says, it is a regular summer visitant to some parts of the island; 
and in Scotland it becomes rare towards the north; but it occurs, though rarely, on the Shetland 
isles, where Dr. Saxby met with it twice, in June and again in September, 1859, at Halligarth ; 
and Messrs. Baikie and Heddle (Hist. Nat. Orcad. i. p. 33) say that one was shot at Clestron, in 
the Orkney isles, in 1827. 
I do not find any record of its occurrence in Greenland, Iceland, or the Feroes; but in 
Scandinavia it is a tolerably common species. Mr. Collett says that it is distributed over all 
Norway, and, according to Sommerfelt, breeds as high as Polmak, in East Finmark. It is most 
numerous on the Trondhjems fiord, and in many portions of the south and west coasts. 
In Sweden it is a common and generally distributed summer visitant, arriving early in May 
and leaving about the middle of September. It is found up in Lapland, both on the Swedish and 
the Finnish side, and is common and generally distributed throughout Finland also. In Russia 
it ranges as far north as Archangel, and is, Mr. Sabanaeff informs me, numerous in Central 
Russia, but in the Ural he did not trace it far north. Throughout the whole of continental 
Europe I find it, generally speaking, recorded as common during the summer season, but in 
some localities it is less numerous than in others. Borggreve says that is common throughout 
the north of Germany, both in the plains and in the mountains; it is recorded by Kjzrbdélling 
as numerous in Denmark, and is, Mr. Labouchere informs me, very common in Holland. In 
Belgium and on the Lower Rhine it is also a common bird; but in some parts of Rhenish 
Prussia it is by no means numerous. Mr. Sachse informs me that, although it used formerly to 
be common at Altenkirchen, it has latterly become rather rare than otherwise, and during the 
last few years he has not found its nest there. It arrives, he says, from the Ist to about the 
middle of May, and leaves again in the early part of September. In France, Portugal, and Spain 
