BLYTH ON THE BLUE-BREAST. 



291 



with a loud snap of his bill. The black redstart, also, has much the 

 habits of a fly-catcher, but I have never seen the redbreast dart into 

 the air after an insect, though this species will sometimes seize flies 

 when settled on a wall in a very adroit manner. 



The bFue-breast, (Motacilla Suecica, Linn.) has always been classed 

 with these birds. Latham placed it in his extensive genus Sylvia; 

 and Temminck also makes it a Sylvia, placing it between the robin 

 and the redstarts ; and in the continuation to Shaw's Zoology, where 

 the term Sylvia is, strangely enough, restricted to the redstart genus, 

 the blue-breast is termed Sylvia Suecica; in Mr. Gould's beautiful 

 illustrations of European birds, it is called Phcenicura Suecica, being 

 still arranged with the redstarts and robin. This beautiful bird has 

 lately been added to our list of accidental stragglers, and it is probable 

 that, during their autumnal migration, some are annually compelled by 

 easterly winds to take shelter on the British shores when attempting to 

 cross from the southern point of Norway. When fir^t I saw the blue- 

 breast alive, in Mr. Rennie's aviary at Lee, I was not a little surprised 

 to perceive, that the bird which has been placed by every writer in the 

 same genus with the redstarts and the robin, belonged most obviously 

 to a very different group, to the wagtails (Motacillana). Nothing can 

 more strongly show the difficulty of arranging birds from mere cabinet 

 specimens, and the necessity of studying living nature, than this 

 placing of the blue-breast in the genera Sylvia and Phcenicura : I 

 think I may confidently assert, that no naturalist who has thus ar- 

 ranged it had ever seen the living bird. The tail of the blue-breast is 

 partly red, but, with the exception of this very trivial particular, there 

 is no resemblance whatever between this bird and the redstarts. Even 

 in a stuffed specimen, the form of the head will show its proper 

 situation. The blue-breast does not hop, like the redstarts, but runs 

 about in the manner of the wagtails and pipits ; it has a remarkable 

 habit of continually spreading its tail, and should there not be already 

 a genus of foreign birds, in which this beautiful species could be placed, 

 the term Pandicilla (expressive of the peculiarity) might be given to it 

 for a generic designation. 



Tooting, Surrey, 



[I am sorry to say, that the living specimen above alluded to, was killed by 

 creeping between a cage and the wall on which it hung. He was exceedingly 

 tame, and would, on the wing, take an insect from the hand.— Editor.] 



