284 Letters, Announcements, H^c. 



his lower rigbt-haud figure would lead us to suppose. Probably 

 ill the breeding-season^ amid the alpine tracts of the Himalayahs, 

 the plumage may in these respects be exactly as figured by Mr. 

 Gould from Thibet examples. Later in the season the whole 

 upper and under surface and rump grow dingier and more 

 rufous ; the black of the throat and sides of the head becomes 

 dull, by the points of the feathers everywhere turning greyish- 

 white. The white which at all times narrowly tips the greater 

 under wing-coverts creeps, more or less, up the feathers ; and 

 greyish-white points appear on the tips of the lesser lower wing- 

 coverts. The quills and upper wing-coverts are first narrowly 

 and then more broadly edged with rufous-fawn. In some speci- 

 mens killed in December and January, males as well as females, 

 and these are possibly yearling birds, there is scarcely a trace of 

 black visible on the chin and throat until the feathers are raised, 

 and the black bases are clearly seen. In these same birds the 

 wing-lining becomes almost entirely greyish -white ; but even 

 here, pushing aside the feathers, it will be seen that the basal 

 portions are dusky, if not black. Some specimens do not undergo 

 so great a change as others ; and some may be shot at all times 

 in the cold weather only slightly more rufous than the nion- 

 tana-ioxm, and with but little, comparatively speaking, of the 

 white tipping to the feathers of the throat and sides of the head. 

 On the other hand, the typical mid-winter plumage is that re- 

 presented in Mr. Gould^s figure of ^. atrogularis (B. As. pt. xvii.), 

 with this one exception, that I have never yet seen a bird in the 

 rufous-brown winter-plumage the black of whose chin and throat 

 was quite so pure as Mr. Gould's plate represents. Of the 

 innumerable specimens in this phase of plumage that I have 

 seen, all had the feathers of these parts more or less tipped with 

 fulvous-white. 



This bird is very common in the upper portion of the North- 

 west Provinces, and throughout the Punjab. Fifty specimens 

 may be seen in a single morning, each, so long as the cold 

 weather lasts, perched solitary on the top of some stunted bush, 

 every now and then fluttering the tail like a Redstart, flying off 

 and seizing some insect in the air like a Fly-catcher (returning 

 usually to the same perch), or darting down and devouring on 



