That the Bohemian Chatterer was known to the ancients there can be little doubt; but a great deal of obscurity prevails as to the names by which it was distinguished. Some have taken it to be the ineendiaria Arid of Pliny (book x. c. 13), the inauspicious bird, on account of whose appearance Rome more than once underwent lustration, but more especially in the consulship of L. Cassius and C. Marius, when the apparition of a great (Bubo) was added to the horrors of the year. Others have supposed that it was the bird of the llereynian forest (book x. c. 47), whose feathers shone in the night like fire. Aldrovandus, who collected the opinions on this point, has taken some pains to show that it could be neither the one nor the other. The worthy Italian gravely assures his readers that its feathers do not shine in the night ; for he says he kept one alive for three months, and observed it at all hours ("qutivis noctis horlt con templatus sum ").
It is by no means improbable that this bird was the tv&itaaor of Aristotle (` Hist. book ix. c. 16).
The geographical range of the Bohemian Chatterer is extensive, comprehending a great portion of the arctic world. It appears gene rally in flocks, and a fatality was at one time believed to accompany their movements. Thus Aldrovandus observes that large flights of them appeared in February, 1530, when Charles V. was crowned at Bologna; and again in 1551, when they spread through the duchies of Modena, Piacenza, and other Italian districts, carefully avoiding that of Ferrara, which was afterwards convulsed by an earthquake. In 1552, according to Gesner, they visited the banks of the Rhine, near Mentz, in such myriads that they darkened the air. In 1571 troops of them were seen flying about the north of Italy, in the month of December, when the Ferrarese earthquake, according to Aldrovandus, took place, and the rivers overflowed their banks.
Necker, in his Memoir on the Birds of Geneva, observes that from the beginning of this century only two considerable flights have been observed in that canton, one in January, 1807, and the other in 1814, when they were very numerous, and having spent the winter there, took their departure in March. In the first of those years they were scattered over a considerable part of Europe, and early in January were seen near Edinburgh. Savi observes that they are not seen in Tuscany except in very severe winters, and that the years 1806 and 1807 were remarkable for the number of them which entered Piedmont, especially the valleys of Lanzo and Suza. - 1 It has been said that it ie always rare in France, and that of late years it has become scarce in Italy and Germany ; but Bechstein observes that in moderate seasons it is found in great flights in the skirts of the forests throughout the greater part of Germany and Bohemia, and that it is to be seen in Thuringia only in the winter : if the season be mild in very small numbers, the greater portion remaining in the north; if the weather be severe, it advances farther south.
The Bohemian Chatterer must be considered only as an occasional visitant to the British Islands, though Pennant says that they appear only by accident in South Britain, but that about Edinburgh they come annually in February, and feed on the berries of the mountain ash ; adding that they also appear as far south as Northumberland, and like the fieldfaro make the berries of the white thorn their food : he records the death of one which was killed at Giutlimeilio in Den bighshire in a fir-tree during the severe frost of December, 1788. Latham, in a note to this statement, says that the late Mr. Tunstall informed him that in the winter of 1787 many flocks were seen all over the county of York, and that towards the spring a flock of between twenty and thirty were observed within two miles of Wycliffe, his place of residence. Bewick states that in the years 1790, 1791, and 1903 several of them were taken in Northumberland and Durham as early as the month of November. Selby says that in the winter of 1810 large flocks were dispersed through various parte of the kingdom, and that from thatriod it does net seem to have visited our island period till the month of February, 1822, when a few came under his inspec tion, and several were again observed during the severe storm in the winter of 1823. Montagu says that he received it out of Staffordshire, and that ho has known others killed in the more southern counties in the autumn and winter. In Mr. Rennie's edition of tdm'Ornitho logical Dictionary' (1833) it appears that one hid been shot in the park of Lord lloringdon at Saltratn in Devonshire, and that not less than twenty have been killed in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk during the last three winters. Graves says that about Christmas, 1803, a number were shot in the neighbourhood of Camberwell, from one of which, being but slightly wounded, his figure was taken. In 'Loudon 's 3lagazioe ' it is stated that a fine specimen was shot near Coventry in December, 1830, where it appeared to associate with starlings, and that during the same mouth of the same year six were killed in the vicinity of Ipswich. The late $1r. W. Thompson records various instances of the occurrence of this bird in Ireland. In the British Islands it more frequently occurs in the north than the south, and Mr. Van-ell states that "the winters of 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1803, 1810, 1820, 1822, 1828, 1830, 1831, 1834, and 1835, are particularly recorded as having afforded opportunities of obtaining specimens in some one or other of various northern localities." Although called the Bohemian Wax-Wing, it is not more common in Bohemia than England. In the central and southern parts of the European continent it is only an occasional visitor.