TURDIN.t. 



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THE ISABELLINE WHEATEAR. 



Saxicola isabellina, Riippell. 



My friend the Rev. H. A. iNIacpherson brought to me in the 

 flesh for identification a bird shot by Mr. Thomas Mann, on a 

 ploughed field and quite alone, at x\llonby, Cumberland, on nth 

 November 1887 ; it proved to be the Isabelline Wheatear, and was 

 exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society on December 6th. 

 This south-eastern bird had not previously been recorded from 

 Heligoland or any part of Western Europe, but it so closely re- 

 sembles the female of the previous species that it might easily 

 escape notice. The specimen, a female, is figured above, and Mr. 

 Macpherson subsequently presented it to the British Museum. 



The Isabelline Wheatear is an early spnng-visitor to South-eastern 

 Russia, especially the province of Astrachan and the arid plains of 

 the Caspian, and to Asia Minor. From the above, after breeding, 

 it takes its departure in autumn ; but in Palestine, Egypt, Eastern 

 Africa down to Somali- and Masai-land, Abyssinia, and Arabia, it 

 appears to be a resident. Eastward it is found in summer across 

 Asia — south of 56° N. and up to 10,000 feet above sea-level — to 



