60 Major J. Biddulph on the Birds of Gilgit. 



The female is much paler than the female of S. morio, but 

 has the chin and throat dirty white, and has no supercilium. 

 Length 5"8 inches, expanse 10-6, wing 3"45, tail 2-6, tarsus 



^kc ^ ^'^> ^^^^ ^^'°^ §'^P^ ^'^> ^^^^ ^^^"^ ^^^^* ^'^^' 



79. Saxicola isabellina, Riipp. 

 None were observed in the first year. In the second year 



several specimens were procured. They appeared about 

 March Q, and were tolerably common till the end of the 

 month. One specimen was secured on April 21. 



This is not Saxicola cenanthe (No. 491 of Jerdon) as iden- 

 tified by Messrs. Hume^ Dresser, and Blanford. Jerdon's 

 description is correctly applicable to the true S. cenanthe. 



The female has the plumage of a paler tone throughout 

 than the male. 



80. Saxicola cenanthe (Linn.) . 

 Two specimens were obtained, and about half a dozen others 



observed, during some heavy weather in March, but never seen 

 at any other time. Both are males, and are assuming the 

 summer plumage, as shown in the plate in Dresser^s ' Birds 

 of Europe.^ 



Mr. Hume has identified Saxicola cenanthe, as described by 

 Jerdon, with S. isabellina ; and in this he has been followed 

 by Messrs. Blanford and Dresser in their exhaustive mono- 

 graph of the genus. But Jerdon^s description and the detailed 

 description given in that monograph of S. cenanthe correspond 

 exactly both with each other and with the specimens now 

 brought from Giigit, (In the fifth line of the description 

 " outer ^^ is proliably a misprint for "other.'^) And as Jerdon, 

 who very accurately describes the species, states that he got 

 a specimen near Mhow, there is no ground for excluding S. 

 cenanthe from the list of Indian birds. 



It may be distinguished from S. isabellina by the wings 

 and tip of tail being black, not brown, the dark tippings of 

 the side-feathers of the tail being much narrower, and by the 

 conspicuous broad black stripe on the side of the head from 

 the lores through the eye to the ear-coverts, and in summer 

 by the blue grey tone of the back. 



