SAXICOLA, 297 
Genus SAXICOLA. 
- The genus Sazicola was established by Bechstein in 1802, in his ‘ Orni- 
thologisches Taschenbuch,’ i. p. 216. He did not indicate any type; and 
his genus included the Whinchat and the Stonechat; but as these two species 
were removed in 1816 by Koch in his ‘ System der baierischen Zoologie,’ 
p. 191, and placed in the genus Pratincola, S. enanthe is left as the type of 
Bechstein’s genus. ‘The Chats may be distinguished by their black legs and 
by the colour of the rump, upper tail-coverts, and the base of the tail, which 
in typical species are white, whilst in the few aberrant species where these 
parts are Ruticilline in colour the proportion between the culmen and the 
tail serves to distinguish them: in the Redstarts the tail is more than 
four times the length of the culmen; in the Chats it is less. 
The genus contains about thirty species, and is principally confined to 
the Aithiopian Region and the southern portion of the Palearctic Region. 
Six species are peculiar to South Africa; five more to Nubia and Abyssinia. 
Six species inhabit North Africa, of which the range of three extends to 
Palestine and the remaining two to Turkestan. Eight species are European, 
of which the range of three extends to Persia, one to Turkestan, two to 
China, and one to the coasts of Greenland and North America. Four 
species breed only in Persia, and four only in Turkestan. In the British 
Islands one species is a common summer visitor, whilst two others are 
very rare stragglers. 
The Chats or Wheatears are birds allied to the Bush-Chats on the one 
hand and the Redstarts on the other. Unlike these birds, however, they 
frequent open ground, rocky mountain-sides, cultivated plains, and dry 
and arid deserts. They perch freely on rocks and stones, but are rarely 
seen in the branches of trees. Their powers of song are somewhat limited. 
Their food consists largely. of worms and insects, the latter sometimes 
being obtained whilst the bird is hovering in the air. They build loose- 
made nests of dry grass, hair, feathers, &c., placed in holes either in the 
ground or in walls or rocks; and their eggs, from five to six in number, 
are blue, sparingly marked with pale reddish brown. 
