CYANECULA SUECICA 
Red-throated Bluebreast. 
Motacilla Suecica, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 336. 
Oiirruca suecica, Selby, Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Northumb. 
Phcenicura suecica, Selby, 111. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 195. 
Pandicilla suecica, Blyth. 
Cyamcula suecica, Brehm. 
Knowledge is imparted in various ways — orally, by written characters and by pictorial representations. 
Written descriptions, however accurate they may he, strike the imagination less than an oral lecture ; but 
when either medium of communication is accompanied by a faithful portraiture of the subject, another 
organ, that of sight, is brought into play, and it is at once rendered clear and intelllgihle. I am induced 
to make these remarks because a written description, however impressively worded, could hut convey an 
inadequate idea of the beauty of the Red-throated Bluebreast, which yet, I trust, is satisfactorily shown in 
the accompanying Plate. Had the bird been as common and obtrusive as the Robin, it vvould have been 
unnecessary to invite special attention to it ; but I apprehend that few of my readers are aware that so lovely 
a bird occasionally comes to us as a visitor from the opposite shores of the Continent, where it and perhaps 
one or two more species are abundant. I say perhaps, because the birds of this form inhabiting Germany, 
France, and Holland are differently coloured from those frequenting Norway and Sweden : those found in 
the greater portion of the Continent, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, have a patch of silvery white 
in the centre of the throat, while those from the countries to the northward of those boundaries have a 
similar patch of red ; and in Russia a third variety or species also occurs, in which the throat is of a uniform 
blue. By some ornithologists each of the latter, or at least one of them, has been considered to he a distinct 
species ; but the propriety of their so considering is, in my opinion, very questionable ; at the same time I 
must admit that it is a nearly parallel case to that of the Yellow Wagtails with differently eoloured heads. 
Whatever may he the ultimate decision of ornithologists, the red-throated bird, the true Motacilla Suecica 
of Linnaeus, is the only one which has yet gone so far out of the ordinary route of its migrations as to visit 
England, and consequently is the only one I have to describe and figure in ‘ The Birds of Great Britain.’ 
The first specimen recorded as having been killed in this country was shot, in May 1826, on the boundary- 
hedge of Newcastle town-moor, and is now in the Museum of the Literary and Philosophical Society of that 
town ; a second, obtained in Dorsetshire in 1836, was preserved in the Museum of Mr. R. A. Cox. Plumptree 
Methuen, Esq., informed Mr. Yarrell that he had an example in his possession which had been killed near 
Birmingham ; and Mr. Henry Stevenson, of Norwich, informs me that one was picked up dead on the beach 
at Yarmouth in September 1841. “This specimen,'” he says, “is in the collection of J. H. Gurney, Esq., 
who has also another, killed on the 15th of May 1856, near Lowestoft; a female in company with the latter 
was not obtained. Both the above-mentioned examples have the red neck-spot, and agree in every respect 
with examples from Lapland. The Yarmouth bird is apparently adult, and the Lowestoft one nearly so; but 
the blue and red of the throat are less defined in the latter.” Doubtless many more examples have visited 
this country than the few above enumerated; but these alone fully justify us in regarding the bird as a 
member of our avifauna ; and it is to be hoped that it will continue to come to our shores, for no one of the 
summer birds could be more welcome. 
If we regard specimens from North Africa, Southern, Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe, the Altai, 
and India as examples of one and the same bird, the range of the species will be very wide indeed ; but this 
is an open question, and I therefore confine my remarks to the bird which is found all over Seandinavia, 
from the Baltic to far within the arctic circle — the one known to Linnaeus. In all these northern regions 
it is a summer migrant, coming we know not whence. In Heligoland it annually occurs more abundantly 
than many of the smaller birds which descend upon that isolated spot, which is as it were a stepping-stone 
for many of those species which nature prompts to proceed on distant pilgrimages. During my visit to 
Norway, I was particularly gratified by finding this species on the Dovrefjeld ; for I did not at all anticipate 
the presence of so beautiful a bird at such an elevation, and was much surprised to learn that it sought 
so inhospitable a region for the purpose of breeding ; but, unlike its near ally the obtrusive Robing it 
seems to shun, in the breeding-season, the presence of man, as if its finery would be too attractive and lead 
to its destruction, as it doubtless does ; for I question whether the old males with their beautiful blue breasts 
would be allowed to remain unmolested either in this country or on the Continent. Those seen by me on 
the Dovrefjeld were extremely shy and wary, so much so that I could not tell, until after examination, which 
sex I had killed. The localities affected by, and the actions of this bird resemble to a certain extent those 
