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Subfamily SYLVIINM. 



Genus CYANECULA. 



Motacilla apud Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 336 (1766). 



Sylvia apud Latham, Ind. Orn. ii. p. 521 (1790). 



Saxicola apud Koch, Baier. Zool. i. p. 189 (1816). 



Cyanecula, C. L. Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1280. 



Calliope apud Hodgson, in Gray's Zool. Misc. p. 83 (1831). 



Curruca apud Selby, Trans. Nat.-Hist. Soc. Northumb. i. p. 255 (1831). 



Plmnicura apud Selby, Illustr. Brit. Orn. i. p. 195 (1833). 



Panclicilla apud Blyth in Rennie's Field Nat. i. p. 291 (1833). 



Buticilla apud Macgillivray, Brit. B. ii. p. 300 (1839). 



Lusciola apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. 58 (1840). 



Erythacus apud Degland, Orn. Eur. i. p. 543 (1849). 



In many respects the Bluethroats resemble the Rubythroats {Calliope); but they are also allied 

 to the Redbreasts, Redstarts, and the true Nightingales. Although it is more especially a 

 Palsearctic genus, yet the Bluethroats are found both in the northern portion of the Ethiopian 

 Region and in the Indo-Malayan Region. There are only two species of Bluethroats known, 

 both of which are found in the Western Palsearctic Region. 



They are extremely sweet songsters ; and in the northern countries where they breed, their 

 song may often be heard at almost all hours of the night. They frequent swampy, bush-covered 

 localities, and skulk about amongst bushes like a Hedge-Sparrow. They feed on insects, and, 

 to some small extent, on seeds also. They build open nests, which are placed on the ground, 

 and deposit dull greenish olivaceous eggs, which, though paler, resemble those of the Night- 

 ingale. The young are spotted, and somewhat resemble the young of Erithacus rubecula. 



Cyanecula wolji, the type of the genus, has the throat blue, with or without a central white 

 spot ; the bill slender, slightly deflected ; the nostrils basal, oval ; gape with very few small 

 bristles ; wings moderate, first quill short, slightly longer than the coverts, the second rather 

 shorter than the sixth, the third and fourth longest ; tail slightly rounded, rufous at the base ; 

 legs slender, the tarsus covered in front with one long plate and four inferior scutellse ; toes 

 moderate, the middle toe with claw considerably shorter than the tarsus. 



Professor Newton has followed many of the earlier authors in placing the Bluethroats in 

 the genus Buticilla; but it appears to me that they differ sufficiently in habits and mode of 

 reproduction to be kept apart from the Redstarts. 



