1922.] so7ne Tndian Wheatears. 157 



measiirod 50 females from many eastern localities and picked 

 out haphazard, and on plotting their -wing measurements 

 (length against the number of specimens for each length) 

 a very suggestive cui've comes out (text-figure 8). Thus we 

 see that the curve rises to an apex at 90-92, falls practically 

 to zero at 94, and rises again to another apex at 96. Now 

 no species, unless there was a large race of it included in the 

 measurements, would show a curve of this nature. Moreover, 

 these large females, such breeding birds as I have seen, come 

 from the same localities only as do oreophila males. 



Lastly, does this large white-winged race show a definite 

 geographical distribution? I think there is no doubt that 

 it does. It is a high alpine form and is the breeding bird 

 of Thibet from Kuku Nor Mts. to Ladak^ Baltistan, 

 and probably Kashmir, and the mountains of western 

 Chinese Turkestan, all localities of 12,000 ft. or more. 

 ffi". atrogularis, on the other hand, does not breed in this 

 area though it passes through on passage, and it breeds over 

 a far wider area and almost certainly at lower elevations. 

 It breeds in the Kirghis Steppes, S. Caucasus, Persia, Persian 

 and British Baluchistan, Seistan, Yarkand plains, and 

 probably lower elevations in Turkestan. The only locality 

 where the two races appear to meet one another is in 

 western Chinese Turkestan, and here there seems to be an 

 altitudinal diflFerence in distribution, and, possibly, the same 

 thing occurs in other parts of Turkestan, though there are 

 no specimens to prove it. 



In winter the distribution of the two races again is 

 different. Ql. oi'eopJnla is found in Seistan, E. Persia, Persian 

 Baluchistan as far west at least as Gwadar, Afghanistan, 

 Muscat, Kashmir (October) and, according to Gates, Socotra ; 

 on passage 1 have seen it from Gharwal in the Himalavas, 

 also near Bokhara ; Scully noted it arriving at Wakhan in 

 the Lower Pamirs in the last half of April. CE. atrog\daris, on 

 the other hand, has a much wider distribution and is found 

 in Nubia, Sudan, Mesopotamia, plains of northern India 

 east to the United Provinces, and occasionally even western 

 Bengal (from none of these localities have I seen oreophila)^ 



