WHEATEAR 1035 



animal, the shelter of a clod in a fallow-field, or a recess beneath a 

 rock, A large amount of soft bedding is therein collected, and on 

 it from 5 to 8 pale blue eggs are laid. The Wheatear has a 

 very wide range throughout the Old World, extending in summer 

 far within the Algetic Circle, from Norway to the Lena and Yana 

 valleys, while it winters in Africa beyond the Ec[uator, and in 

 India. But it also breeds regularly in Greenland and some parts 

 of North America. Its reaching the former and the eastern coast of 

 the latter, as well as the Bermudas, may jDOssibly be explained by the 

 drifting of individuals from Iceland ; but far more interesting is the 

 fact of its continued seasonal appearance in Alaska without ever 

 shewing itself in British Columbia or California, and without ever 

 having been observed in Kamchatka, Japan or China, though it is 

 a summer resident in the Tchuktchi peninsula. Hence it would 

 seem as though its annual flights across Bering's Strait must be in 

 connexion with a migratory movement that passes to the north and 

 west of the Stanovoi mountains, for Mr. Nelson's suggestion {Cruise 

 of the ' Conven,' pp. 59, 60) of a north-west passage from Boothia 

 Felix, where Ross observed it, is less likely.^ 



More than 60 other species more or less allied to the Wheatear 

 have been described,^ but probably so many do not really exist. 

 Some 8 are included in the European fauna ; but the majority are 

 inhabitants of Africa. Several of them are birds of the desert ; 

 and here it may be remarked that, Avhile most of these exhibit the 

 sand-coloured tints so commonly found in animals of like habitat, a 

 few assume a black plumage, which, as explained by Canon Tristram, 

 is equally protective, since it assimilates them to the deep shadows 

 cast by projecting stones and other inequalities of the surface. 



Of genera allied to, and by some "writers included in, Saxicola 

 there is only need here to mention Praticola, which comprises 

 among others two well-known British birds, the Stonechat and 

 Whinchat, p. ruUcola and P. rubetra. 



JIlRO. Myiomoira. 



(From Buller.) 



Placed near these forms by most systematists is the group con- 

 taining the Australian genus Petrceca, containing about a dozen 



1 See Dr. Stejneger's observations in his "Ornithological Exploration of 

 Karatschatka," (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 29, pp. 349-351), and those of Prof. 

 Palmen [Vcga-Exped. Vdensl: lakttag. v. pp. 260-262). 



■ Cf. Blanford and Dresser [Proc. Zool. Soc. 1874, pp. 213-241). 



