. A history of British birds . formed the Editor that a cock wascaught on board a fishing-boat off Aberdeen, May 16th, 1872. Whether there is more than one species of Bluethroat isa question which has been long debated and cannot yet bedeemed settled. Three forms are found, the males of which,when in breeding-plumage, can be readily distinguished, and two BLUETHROAr. 323 of them certainly have different breeding-grounds. The birdnamed by Linnieus Motacilla sueclca is characterized by himas possessing a red spot in the middle of its blue throat,* andseven at least of the specimens obtained in B
. A history of British birds . formed the Editor that a cock wascaught on board a fishing-boat off Aberdeen, May 16th, 1872. Whether there is more than one species of Bluethroat isa question which has been long debated and cannot yet bedeemed settled. Three forms are found, the males of which,when in breeding-plumage, can be readily distinguished, and two BLUETHROAr. 323 of them certainly have different breeding-grounds. The birdnamed by Linnieus Motacilla sueclca is characterized by himas possessing a red spot in the middle of its blue throat,* andseven at least of the specimens obtained in Britain—namely,the Newcastle, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Brighton and Aberdeenexamples, as well as that in the Strickland Collection—undoubt-edly belong to this form, which, to say nothing here of its moreeastern range, is a well-known summer-visitant to the higherand more northern parts of Norway and Sweden. But themajority of Bluethroats which come to the rest of Conti-nental Europe have a white instead of a red spot, and these. white-spotted birds, erroneously regarded by most ornitholo-gists as the true M. sueclca, were in 1881 first distinguishedby Brehm (Handbuch, p, 353) as Cijanecida leucocyana,\and do not ordinarily advance further north than Hollandin the west, or cross the Baltic in the east. The third form, • This fact has been overlooked by most wiiters, who, while applying the epithetauccica to the commoner inhabitant of Europe, which never visits Sweden, havebestowed on Linn{euss bird other specific names, as orientalis, fastuosa, ivdica,and dichrosterna. t The name Sylvia cynnecula, Wolf (Taschenbuch, i. p. 240), though older, isnot distinctive, any more than is Pallass M. ccerulecula {Zoogv. i. p. 480). 324 with the throat entirely blue, received in 1823 from the eldestBrehm (Beitriige, ii. p. 173) the name of Si/lrla wolji. Thiswould appear generally to accompany the white-spotted ratherthan the red-spotted form, and to it would seem to be refe
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsaun, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbirds
