WHITETHROAT. 405 



SYLVIA CINEREA*. 



WHITETHEOAT. 



(Plate 10.) 



Ficediila curruca cinerea, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 376 (1760). 



Motacilla sylvia, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 330 (1766). 



Ficedula stoparola, Gerini, Orn. Meth. Dig. iv. p. 36, pi. cccxcvi. fig. 1 (1773). 



? MotaciUa rufa, Bodd, Table PL Enl. p. 35 (1783, ex Daubenton). 



Sylvia cpmmunis, Lath. Oen. 8yn. Suppl. i. p. 287 (1787). 



Sylvia cinerea, var. |3, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 515 (1790)? 



Sylvia cinerea, Bechst. Orn. Taachenb. i. p. 170 (1802) ; et auctorum plurimorum 

 — Temminck, Vieillot, Wolf, MSnetries, Jenyns, MacgilKvray, Keyserling, Blasius, 

 Nordmann, Cabanis, Nauinann, Bonaparte, Oray, Schlegel, Selby, Salvadori, 

 DeglandjGerbe, Sundevall, Lindermayer, Loelie, Heuglin, Blanford, Fritsch, Shelley, 

 Severtzow, Gould, Sfc. 



Sylvia cineraria, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch. 2n(i ed. ii. p. 534 (1807). 



Sylvia cinerea (Bechst.), var., Turton, Brit. Faun. p. 45 (1807). 



Curruca cinerea {Bechst.), Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. i. p. 157 (1816). 



Curruca sylvia (Linn.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 2, p. 210 (1826). 



Ficedula cinerea (Bechst.), Blyih, Bennie's Field Nat. i. p. 310 (1833). 



Curruca cinevea (Bechst.),rav. persica, Filippi, Viagg. Pers. pp. 162, 348 (1865). 



Sylvia aflBnis, Blyth apud Salvad. Atii R. Accad. Sci. Tor. iii. p. 291 (1868). 



Sylvia rufa (Bodd.), apud Newton, ed, Yarr. Br. B. i. p. 406 (1873). 



The Common Whitethroat is, as its name implies^ one of the best-known 

 of the Warblers; It is a common and generally distributed species through- 

 out England and Wales. In Scotland it is one bf the most familiar birds^ 

 but becomes rarer towards the north. Mr. Gray states that in the western 

 counties it is extremely common. It is also found on several of the Inner 

 Hebrides, as Mull and lona ; and Dixon met with it in all the wooded parts 

 of Skye which he visited ; but it is apparently unknown in the Outer Islands. 

 Mr. Gray states that it has occurred in the Orkneys ; whilst to the Shet- 

 lands, according to Dr. Saxby, it is a straggler in warm summers. In 

 Ireland the bird is as well known and as widely distributed as it is in 

 Great Britain. 



* It is a thousand pities that Professor Newton should have attempted to disturb the 

 name by which the Whitethroat has been universally known for the last eighty years, 

 both by British and continental ornithologists. It is possible that Daubenton's figure of 

 " La Fauvette rousse " (PI- Enl. no. 581 . fig. 1) may be au exaggerated figure of a young 

 male in first plumage of the Whitethroat; but there can be no doubt that Boddaert would 

 have been greatly surprised to learn that his name of Motacilla rufa was applied to the 

 Whitethroat, which was figured in the same work, no. 579. fig. 3, under the name of 

 " La Grisette," and which he correctly identified with the Motacilla sylvia of Linnaeus. 

 Boddaert's unambitious object was to supply the Latin names of the birds figured in the 



