304 BRITISH BIRDS. 
SAXICOLA DESERTI. 
DESERT-WHEATEAR. 
(PLATE 9.) 
Saxicola stapazina (Linn.), apud Licht. Eversm. Reis. Buchara, p. 128 (1823). 
Saxicola deserti, Temm. Pl. Col. pl. 559. fig. 2 (1825) ; et auctorum plurimorum— 
Gray, Bonaparte, Cabanis, Heuglin, Jerdon, Dresser, &c. 
Saxicola isabellina, Riipp. apud Temm. Pl. Col. pl. 472. fig. 1 (1829). 
Saxicola pallida, Riipp. Neue Wirb. Vog. p. 80 (1835). 
Saxicola atrogularis, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xvi. p. 131 (1847). 
Saxicola salina, Lversm. Bull. Soc. Mosc. xxiii. pt. 2, p. 567, pl. viii. fig. 2 (1859). 
Saxicola gutturalis, Licht, Nomenci. Av. p. 35 (1854). 
Saxicola homochroa, Tristram, Ibis, 1859, p. 59. 
Saxicola albomarginata, Salvad. Atti Soc. Tor. p. 507 (1870). 
The claim of the Desert-Chat to a place in the British fauna rests upon 
the capture of a single specimen. This bird was obtained on the 26th of 
November 1880, near Stirling ; and its occurrence was recorded by Mr. J. 
Dalgleish in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Physical Society’ for the 
following year. It was killed by a Mr. Watt, gamekeeper to Lord Balfour, 
of Burleigh, whilst sitting on a stone in a piece of moorland at the side of 
Gartmorn Dam, on the property of the Earl of Zetland, near Alloa. It even- 
tually came into the possession of Mr. J. Taylor of Alloa, who, struckby its 
unusually late appearance and different markings from those of the Common 
Wheatear, sent it to Mr. Dagleish. This gentleman kindly forwarded it 
for exhibition at the first April meeting of the Zoological Society last year, 
when I had an opportunity of examining it. It is a male in autumn 
plumage. Although ten days elapsed ere it was preserved, it has been 
mounted very successfully. The contents of the stomach consisted-of — 
small flies. To the European fauna the claim of the Desert-Chat is equally 
slight. It rests upon two specimens obtained on the ornithologically 
famous little island of Heligoland, which are now in the possession of Mr. 
Gaetke. One of these birds is a male, with black throat, in autumn plumage, 
captured on the 26th of October 1856; the other a female, without the 
black throat, also in autumn plumage, taken on the 4th of October in the 
following year. The true home of this interesting little bird is, as its name 
implies, dry and sandy regions. Although thus comparatively an unknown 
bird north of the Mediterranean, it has nevertheless a very wide and 
extensive range. It is a resident wherever the country is suitable to its 
habits, from the trackless wastes of the Algerian Sahara eastwards to the 
plains of India. It is found in Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Arabia, and the 
highlands of Southern Persia, occasionally wandering into Abysinnia 
during the winter. Still further to the north and east it breeds on the 
plateaux of Turkestan, at varying elevations from 1000 to 12,300 feet 
