124 BLUE-THROATED REDSTART. 
some years ; yet, if Temminck be correct, the 
difference in their range is against this, and the 
probability is, that two species are still con- 
founded, and that a strict comparison will detect 
more differences than the colour of the pectoral 
spot. The British specimens all possess the white 
spot, and would stand as P. cyanecula, Meyer. 
From the accounts which Mr Yarrell quotes from 
Mr Hoy’s observations, the manners of the Blue- 
throated Redstart are more akin to the Robins than 
to the Stonechats, being more arboreal in habits, 
and frequenting, during the breeding season, 
“ low swampy grounds, on the woody borders of 
boggy heaths, and on the banks of streams run- 
ning through wet springy meadows, where there 
is abundance of alder and willow underwood.” 
Again, “ the nest is placed on the ground among 
plants of the bog myrtle, in places overgrown 
with coarse grass, on the sides of sloping banks, 
in the bottom of stubs of scrubby brushwood in 
wet situations and he adds, “ I do not believe 
they ever build in holes of trees.”* Its manner of 
living, also, is very different from either the 
Stonechats or Redstarts, and altogether it forms 
a gradual blending or passage to the typical 
songster warblers, comprising its sub-family. 
Perhaps the beautiful Motacilla caliope, bandied 
about from Motacilla, Sylvia, Accentor, Phoeni- 
cura, and at last into Caliope, Gould, when its 
habits are better known, will shew a still farther 
gradation, and it does not seem at all unlikely, 
* Yarrel, British Birds, i. p. 235. 
