438 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



flight and tail pattern distinguishes it from all Wheatears on British 

 List except Common and Pied. (F.C.R.J.) 



BREEDING-HABITS. Frequents rough hillsides, ruins, broken ground, 

 sides of water-courses, etc. Nest. Sometimes in hole, but often in 

 recess on hillside sheltered by growing plant or projecting stone ; 

 built of bents, moss and grasses lined fine roots and often hair. 

 Eggs. 4 or 5, sometimes 6, bluish-green in ground-colour, deeper 

 than those of Common Wheatear, and spotted with reddish-brown 

 with tendency to zone, but as a rule less distinctly than eggs 

 of eastern form. Average of 54 eggs, 19.9x15 mm. Breeding - 

 season. From first week May onward and as eggs are found as late 

 as June and July, probably two broods are reared. Incubation. 

 Apparently by hen only ; period not ascertained. 



FOOD. Little definite information, but apparently almost entirely 

 insects, taken on ground and on wing ; probably chiefly small 

 coleoptera, orthoptera and diptera. 



DISTRIBUTION. Great Britain. Eleven obtained and one seen, 

 viz.: male (black-throated) seen Spurn (Yorks.) Sept. 18, 1892 

 (Saunders, p, 23) ; male near Polegate (Sussex) May 28, 1902 ; 

 male near Hooe (Sussex) May 22, 1905 ; male (black-throated) 

 near Lydd (Kent) May 23, 1906 (Saunders, Brit. B., i, pp. 6, 7) ; 

 male Winchelsea (Sussex) May 2, 1907 (J. B. Nichols, i.e., p. 185) ; 

 male (black-throated) Fair Isle Sept. 25, 1907 (W. E. Clarke, Ann. 

 Scot. Nat. Hist., 1908, p. 81) ; female St. Kilda (Outer Hebrides) 

 Sept. 21, 1911 (id., Studies in Migration, n, p. 217) ; two males 

 (black-throated) near Winchelsea (Sussex) May 16 and 19, 1912 

 (J. B. Nichols, Brit. B., vi, p. 184) ; two males (black-throated) 

 Hollington (Sussex) May 5, 1915 and St. Leonards Oct. 30, 1915 

 (H. W. Ford-Lindsay, op. cit., ix, pp. 121 and 249) ; male (black- 

 throated) Tuskar Eock (Wexford) May 16, 1916 (C. J. Patten, 

 Irish Nat., 1916, p. 100, Nov. Zool., xxrv, pp. 1-16). 



DISTRIBUTION. Abroad. Western Mediterranean countries, south 

 of the Alpine range and south Tyrol. Passing through the western 

 Sahara and observed as far south as Senegambia. Has been shot 

 on Heligoland. Replaced in eastern Mediterranean countries, 

 east to Asia Minor and Syria, by (E. hispanica melanoleuca. 



181. CEnanthe hispanica melanoleuca (Giild.) THE EASTERN 

 BLACK-EARED WHEATEAR. 



MtrsciCAPA MELANOLEUCA Guldenstadt, Nov. Comm. Petrop., xix, p. 

 468 pi. 15 (1775 Georgia, Caucasus). 



Saxicola xanthomelcena Hemprich & Ehrenberg, Symb. Phys. Aves, 

 fol. c, aa, no. 6 (1833 Egypt. Description of the autumn-plumage of 

 the black-throated form). 



