ALPINE ACCENTOR. 501 



AC CENTOS, ALPINUS. 



ALPINE ACCENTOR. 



(Plate 12.) 



Sturnus collaris, Scop. Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 131 (1769). 



Sturnus moritanus, Omel Sij-it. Xat. i. p. S04 (1788). 



Motacilla alpina, Omc/. Syst. Nat. i. p. '■)o7 (1788) ; et auctorum plurimorum — 

 {Bechsfein), (2'einiiiiiich), {Xaumrnin), [Uona parte), (Ueyldiiil !$• Oertje), (Gray), 

 (Giebel), (Macgillivray), (Hewit.-ion), (Salvadori), (S'l'vertzow), (Hartiiirj), (Bog- 

 (lanow), (Nordmauii), (Badde), &c. 



Accentor alpinus {Gmel.), Bechst. Orn. Taschenb. i. p. 191 (1802). 



Accentor collaris (Scop.), Neivt. cd. Yarr. Br. B. i. p. -'90 (1873). 



The Alpine Accentor is a purely accidental visitor to the British Islands. 

 It does not appear to have ever occurred in Scotland or in Ireland. It 

 was first recorded as a British bird by the late Dr. Thackeray, who men- 

 tions, in the ' Zoological Journal ' for 1824 (p. 134), a female that was 

 shot in the garden of King's College, Cambridge. It was obtained on the 

 22nd of November 1823. An example of the Alpine Accentor had, how- 

 ever, been previously obtained in this country in the autumn of 1817, 

 although the fact was not chronicled until 1832, in the ' Magazine of 

 Natural History,' vol. v. p. 288. Ten other examples have been obtained 

 in England, chiefly in the southern counties, although one specimen has 

 been captured near Scarborough ; and IsIt. Howard Saunders met with a 

 bird of this species on one of the Welsh mountains. 



The Alpine Accentor breeds throughout the mountains of Southern 

 Europe, the Sierra Nevada in South Spain, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the 

 mountains of Greece and Asia Minor, and the Caucasus, extending into 

 Northern Persia. Examples from Turkestan are more chestnut on the 

 flanks, approaching A. nipaknsis in this respect ; otherwise they do not 

 differ in colour from European specimens. The latter species is found in 

 the Himalayas and the mountains of Western China, being represented in 

 South-eastern Siberia by a very nearly allied form {A. erythropygius) with 

 a much more rufous rump. 



I have never had the good fortune to meet with the Alpine Accentor on 

 any of my excursions. It is therefore necessary to do as Newton, Dresser, 

 and even Naumann have been obliged to do — compile a history of this bird 

 from the writings of others. Naumann's information was principally 

 supplied to him by Dr. Schinz of Zurich ; and the ' Journal flir Ornitho- 

 logie ' contains observations by Alexander von Homeyer in the mountain- 

 I'ange which separates Bohemia from Silesia, by Graf Wodzicki in the 



