A RARE BIRD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPLCUTOR."3 SIR,—As so many of your readers are bird-lovers, I feel I must write about a very rare bird which I have seen. My son—aged twelve—and I were walking in Christ Church meadow in the end of June. We are both foiid of watching birds and cf reading about them. Just under the " Dead Man's Wall " runs a path which all who know Oxford will remember. At the end of this walk are some big trees, and in the first of these we saw a slender bird with a brownish back, grey on each side of its head, an orange-red throat, and a large white patch below the throat; also a grey sort of frill round the red throat, merging into the white below. At the first sight the bird looked like a robin. Then we saw the slender' build, the grey on the head, the large white patch, and my boy said, in It low whisper : " It's a red-throated flycatcher." The bird then flew across the path see another tree; it was within ten feet of us, and we could see it well. After that it flew away. We looked at the piCture in Thorburn's British Birds on our return home, and the red-throated flycatcher was exactly like our bird. I am very anxious to know what your readers think. There have only been eighteen specimens seen in England, so I am prepared for some doubts. But two people saw the bird very close, and had about one and a half minutes to watch it. The difference in shape between our dear, dumpy robin and this elegant creature was very marked. And the orange-red colour only covered the throat—the bird was white on the breast.-1 am, Sir, &c., H. M. GIBBON.
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