(4?8) 



The ilistribntion of S. oomnthe nrgentea, however, is uot yet known. Specimens 

 from Northern Siberia (Lena) do not seem to belong to argcntca, their bills being on 

 the contrary rather short, while those oi anjentea are rather long as a rule, though 

 not so long as in most rostrata. 



A form which is mnch better defined is the large " Icucorhoa^ This was for 

 the first time named from migrants in Senegambia, but it breeds in Greenland, 

 while the birds from Iceland and the FarOer are said to be the same, although it 

 appears that a small series of Iceland specimens have the wings not longer than 

 IMO mui., while in Greenland they are sometimes as long as 110 mm., others, 

 however, being smaller. 



On migration this large form —or these large forms — pass through England 

 aud continental Western Europe, the Canaries and Azores, and North-West Africa 

 as far east as Tunis. They have several times been recorded from Egypt and 

 Nubia, but evidently erroneously. Mr. Kleinschmidt {Berajak, i. pp. 5, 0) mentioned 

 already very large specimens, which nevertheless are uot leucorJtoa ; and I have 

 recently, through the kindness of Mr. Nicoll, been able to compare the specimens 

 mentioned by him under the name of S. oc. lem-orlioa in Ibiii, 1909, p. 287, aud 

 they are certainly not leucorhoa. Instead of being rather brownish, they are very 

 light, and, though their wings reach 100 mm., they are not leucorl/ua, but apparently 

 belong to Lonnberg's argentea. The easternmost locality for Iracorhoa therefore 

 remains Tunisia, where it is rather rare. 



The most distinct subspecies of S. oennnthe is Saxicola oenanthg si'ebohmi. 

 The male differs strikingly by having an entirely black throat — nevertheless I agree 

 with Kleinschmidt (cf. Berajah, i.) that S. sechohmi can be treated as a form 

 of oenautlu'. Its habits, song, and nest and eg^, are like those of <S'. oenai/tke 

 oenanthe, and the females are not at all easy to distinguish. »S'. oenantke seebohini 

 was discovered ou the Djebel Mahmel in Algeria, and has been found also on some 

 of the neighbouriug mountains, while Riggenbach obtained an example in tlie 

 Southern Atlas iu Morocco. 



Saxicola deserti. 



Saxicola ckserti deserti inhabits the Sahara from the Atlantic Ocean (Cape 

 Blanco, 21", collected by Comte de Dalmas) to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia. On the 

 whole Egyptian and Nubian e.xamples agree best with Tunisian and Algerian ones, 

 and those from the Natron Valley, collected by the Hon. N. Charles Rothschild, are 

 perfectly like the western ones ; nevertheless some of the Nubian birds are inter- 

 mediate, and the true Asiatic form ajipears sometimes in winter in Nubia and at 

 Khartoum. The Asiatic form, which is darker, with more of a brownish and greyish 

 tinge, must be called S. deserti atrogularis, Blyth having given the name 

 atrogularis to specimens from Western India in 1847. It has been customary 

 of late to acknowledge two " species " in Asia, one being called & deserti, the other 

 S. moiitana, renamed orcophila by Oberholser, because the name Saxicola mortfaiia 

 had been preoccupied. The latter " species " had been separated because the white 

 at the basal portion of the inner webs of the quills is wider, and the wings are 

 longer. There is, unfortunately, no constancy iu these characters, as there is every 

 intermediate between specimens with more white on the (luills and others which 

 have only a narrow white border, like Saharan examples, and every intermediate in 

 size as well Moreover both supposed species occnr, as far as I can find out, over 



