SAXICOLA CENANTHE 23 



Atlas, and as comparatively little is at present known respecting this 

 rare and interesting Chat, it may perhaps not be out of place to give 

 an extract of what I wrote at the time regarding the species {Ibis, 

 1898, p. 595) :— 



" Saxiculu seeboJnni. — Three specimens, all males; one ol)tained at 

 Tihila on May 24th, and the other two at Zarakten on May 29th. 

 Two of the specimens are in fine adult plumage, while the third, 

 which is probably a last year's bird, shows some immature feathers. 

 No female specin^ens were obtained, and Mr. Dodson says he met 

 with none, and concluded that the hen birds were on their nests at 

 the time. Mr. Dodson met with this rare Chat only in the above- 

 named districts in the Atlas Mountains, where he found it by no 

 means common, and always in the most desolate and barren spots. 

 The height of Zarakten and Tilula is apparently about 5,000 feet 

 above sea-level, or about the same as that of the plateaux of the 

 Djebel Mahmel in Algeria, where Mr. C. Dixon and Dr. Koenig found 

 the species, and this degree of elevation is doubtless a characteristic 

 of the bird's habitat. The range of S. seehohmi probably extends 

 throughout the entire chain of the Atlas Mountains, wherever the 

 above-mentioned altitude is reached, but the species appears to be 

 nowhere very abundant, at a)iy rate now, although Mr. Dixon found 

 it common on the Djebel Mahmel in 1882. I n:ay here mention that 

 last year I sent a collector to the Djebel Mahmel in the njonth of 

 May, with a view to obtaining the nests and eggs of S. seehohmi, but 

 although my man spent a couple of days on the mountain, he failed to 

 find what I wanted, nor did he even come across the bird itself, the 

 only Chat he found being Saxicola aiirita, of which species he 

 brought me a nest with five eggs and the female parent." 



Whether S. seehohmi is a resident species in the Atlas, or 

 whether it migrates further south in winter, is at present unknown, 

 the only recorded occasions on which this rare Chat has been met 

 with having been in the late spring. Considering, however, the tem- 

 perature of the Atlas regions in winter, and the fact of the species 

 never having been met with tliere daring that season, it seems more 

 than probable that it does migrate on the approach of winter, only 

 returning to its summer quarters when the spring is fairly well 

 advanced. 



In the month of November, 1902, I purposely sent a collector to 

 Djebel Mahmel in search of S. seehohmi, but although he spent some 

 days in the neighbourhood he failed to meet with the species. 



