NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE. 



Vol. XXIV. MAY 1917. No. I. 



WESTERN BLACK-EAEED WHEATEAR {OENANTHE HIS- 

 PANICA HISPANICA), ON MIGRATION OBTAINED ON 

 TUSKAR ROCK: A BIRD NEW TO IRELAND. 



With Remaeks on the Status of this Species in the British Isles. 



By professor C. J. PATTEN, M.A., M.D., Sc.D. 



(Plate I.) 



IN the June number of The Irish Naturalist, 1916, p. 100, I published a pre- 

 liminary note to the efEect that I had received and identified a Black-eared 

 Wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica) * from Tuskar Light-station, Co. Wexford. 

 The bird was collected alive in a disabled condition on the rock, at 7.15 p.m. 

 on Tuesday, May 16th, 1916, by Mr. John Glanville, principal keeper, and to him 

 I am deeply indebted for his kindness in sending me this interesting species — 

 the first of its kind from Ireland. The earliest intimation which I received 

 of its capture came in a letter kindly written by Mrs. Glanville, from Rosslare 

 Harbour, dated May 17th, in which she informed me that her husband telephoned 

 from the rock that morning the enclosed description of a bird which he caught 

 alive the previous evening : " Wheatear with black throat ; back of head, neck, 

 and shoulders, golden-bufE ; lower back, white ; central taU-feathers, black, rest 

 white almost to tip, outer tail-feathers, graduating." 



Knowing that I could not receive the bird until next relief boat-day — a 

 week hence — ^I wrote to Mrs. Glanville by return and asked her would she kindly 

 telephone the following message to the rock to Mr. Glanville : " Dehghted to 

 hear about the strange Wheatear. Though the description you sent is brief 

 and general, nevertheless you have furnished enough information to enable me 



* I published a similar note in The Daily Express (Dublin), June 8th, in The Irish Times, 

 Jirne 9th, and in Nature, June 15th, pp. 321-22, 1916. Time did not permit me to compare the 

 specimen before sending these notes, and though strongly suspecting the bird to belong to the 

 Western race, it seemed advisable not to state so definitely until a comparison was made. For this 

 reason in the note in Nature and in The Irish Naturalist (where the scientific names are inserted) 

 only the binomial expression Oenanthe hispanica appears : this being equivalent to Black-eared 

 Wheatear generally, the race undetermined. But knowing now that this specimen from Tuskar 

 belongs to the Western race, I give it its full trinomial designation, Oenanthe hispanica hispanica, 

 to distinguish it from Oe. hispanica xanthomelaena, the Eastern form. The number of specimens 

 for comparison which I had at my disposal was too small to afford full and satisfactory information ; 

 therefore, to be more certain, I sent the specimen to Mr. Eagle Clarke, to whom my best thanks are 

 due for his kindness in comparing it with the collection of Black-eared Wheatears in the Royal 

 Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. The result of Mr. Eagle Clarke's investigation was to confirm my 

 diagnosis of the racial form of the bird from Tuskar. 

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