6 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XXIV. 1917. 



DESCBIFTION OF THE SFECISIZ:!]'. 



Flumage. 



Markings. — Forehead and front of crown, silver-grey exhibiting a slight 

 metallic lustre ; traced backwards over the rest of the crown this shade gradually 

 merges through straw-colour to golden-buii which is continued over the nape, 

 upper back, and inter-scapular region, and, becoming darker through an 

 admixture with a greyish transverse band which crosses the mid-back, is 

 succeeded by a broad patch of white on the lower back and rump ; right 

 central tail-feather black almost to the base. This is a fresh feather evidently 

 acquired during the spring moult. Its fellow on the left is browTi almost to 

 the base, shorter, and shows evidence of wear, and was acquired during the 

 previous autumn moult ; rest of tail-feathers white, margined mth brown form- 

 ing a terminal band which is considerably broader at the edges. The feather 

 immediately outside the right central feather is also new, is longer than the 

 corresponding feather on the left side, and has a blackish margin interrupted by 

 a white spot. The rest of the taQ-feathers are old, being acquired during the 

 previous autumn moult. Lesser, median, and most of the greater wing-coverts 

 black, some of these feathers showing traces of buff edgings (these feathers are 

 new, being acquired during the spring moult) ; primary wing-coverts and the 

 outer greater wing-coverts adjoining them, dull brown edged with dull buff (these 

 feathers are old and were acquired during the previous autumn moult). The same 

 holds good for the primaries, secondaries, and inner secondaries (tertiaries), which 

 are dull mud-brown in colour, the huffish edgings being obscured through fading 

 and reduced by abrasion. The scapulars show blackish bases, and are broadly 

 margined with golden-buff which intermingles with that shade in the inter- 

 scapular feathers. The golden-buff on the nape sweeps round the sides of the 

 lower neck, and, becoming poorer in shade at the bottom of the throat, passes 

 gradually into the dull impure buffish-white of the breast, abdomen, and under 

 tail-coverts. The under wing-coverts and axillaries are black ; but the minute 

 feathers lining the edge of the under surface of the wing, in the line of the bastard 

 primary, are black broadly edged with greyish- white, giving them a mot* led 

 appearance. The lores, cheeks (including the ear-coverts), chin, and upper 

 throat, are black ; some of the feathers being minutely flecked with greyish- 

 white. A whitish semicircular collar circumscribes this black area below, 

 and intervenes between it and the golden-buff of the sides of the neck and lower 

 part of the throat. 



Phase. — Accorduig to Saunders the wings (including not only the coverts 

 but all the feathers of flight) of the adult inale Black-eared Wheatear in full nuptial 

 'plumage (Black-throated Wheatear of his time) are nearly black, and the forehead 

 is white, whereas in the bird from Tuskar the flight-feathers are nut-brown in 

 shade contrasting markedly with the black wing-coverts, and the forehead is 

 silver-grey ; lastly, the tail of the bird, which Saunders describes, shows clearly 

 in the illustration that it has a much narrower terminal band (than iii the Tuskar 

 bird), which appears in fact incomplete.* Moreover, this band is described as 

 black, not brown, as in the Tuskar bu'd. These points of difference in plumage 



• It is significant, as Saunders remarks, that the black margin of the tail is subject to great 

 diminutioa and partial disappearance with age (Mammal of Briiiah Birds, 1899, p. 24). 



