ar 
‘“ 
THE BLACK-THROATED CHAT. 307 
SAXICOLA STAPAZINA (Vieillot, nec Dresser). 
THE BLACK-THROATED CHAT, 
(PLate 9.) 
Ficedula vitiflora rufa (g nee 2), Briss. Orn. iii. p. 459 (1760). 
Muscicapa melanoleuca, Giild. Nov. Com. Petr. xix. p. 468, pl. xv. (1775, Western 
form). 
Motacilla stapazina (Linn.)* (gd nec 2), apud Gimel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 966 (1788); et 
auctorum plurimorum—(Temminck),( Meyer), (Gould), (Keyserling), (Blasius), 
(Nordmann), (Liippell), (Degland), (Gerbe), (Bonaparte), (Cabanis), (Heuglin), 
(Lristram), (Lindermeyer), (Newton), (Lilippi), (Doderlein), (Gray), (Fritsch), 
(Salvadori), (Gould), (Jaubert), (Loche), (Irby), &e., &e., &e., nee Dresser, nec 
Blanford. 
Sylvia stapazina (Zinn.) (db nec 2), apud Lath, Ind. Orn. ii. p. 530 (1790). 
Vitiflora rufa (¢ nec 2), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. x. p. 569 (1817). 
Ginanthe stapazina (Linn.), apud Vieill. N. Dict. d’ Hist. Nat. xxi. p. 425 (1818). 
Saxicola stapazina (Linn.), apud Temm. Man. d’Orn. i. p. 239 (1820). 
Vitiflora stapazina (Linn.), apud Bore, Isis, 1822, p. 552. , 
Saxicola xanthomelena, Hempr. et Ehr. Symb. Phys., Aves, fol. aa (1833, autumn 
plumage of Eastern form). 
Saxicola eurymeleena, Hempr. et Ehr. Symb. Phys., Aves, fol. bb (1833, summer 
plumage of Eastern form). 
Saxicola albicilla, von Mill. Naumannia, 1851, p. 28 (Eastern form). 
Saxicola rufa (Brehm), Blanf. § Dresser, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1874, p. 221 ( Western form), 
Saxicola melanoleuca (Giild.), Blanf. § Dresser, Proc, Zool. Soc, 1874, p. 222 ( Western 
form). 
The Black-throated Chat is divided into two forms, which have been 
specifically separated by Brehm, Blanford, and Dresser. Although the 
difference between them is so slight, yet, as their geographical distribu- 
tion coincides with it, it is best, perhaps, to afford them subspecific rank, 
and regard them as imperfectly segregated subspecies or varieties. The 
one form, Sazicola stapazina, breeds in the south of France, Spain, 
Western Algiers, and Morocco, and winters in Western Africa; the other, 
Saxicola stapazina, var. melanoleuca, breeds in Greece, South Russia, Asia 
Minor, Palestine, and South Persia, passes through Egypt and Nubia on 
Migration, and probably winters in Central Africa. 
One would naturally expect to find a bird breeding in Western Europe 
‘occasionally straggling to the British Islands; but it was a specimen of 
* The Motacilla stapazina of Linneus is undoubtedly the Eared Chat, 8. awrita (without 
‘the black throat), though there cannot be any reasonable doubt that Linnzeus considered 
the latter species the female of the bird which has generally been called S. stapazina, 
inasmuch as he refers to Brisson and Edwards, who both asserted this to be the case. 
According to the British-Association rules, Linnzeus’s name must stand for the Kared Chat, 
or lapse altogether for want of clear definition, 
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