328 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



140. Desert Chat [WUSTEN-STEINSCHMATZKK]. 

 SAXICOLA DESERTI, Rlippel. 



Desert Chat. Dresser, ii. 215. 



Saxicola deserti. Tristram, Western Palestine, 33. 



Saxicola deserti. Jerdon, Birds of India, ii. 132. 



This native of the hot and barren desert has on three occa- 

 sions emigrated from its southern home to Heligoland in the far 

 north. The examples killed here, and preserved in my collection, 

 consist of an old male in pure autumn plumage, shot on the 4th 

 of October 1856, a female caught on the 26th of October of the 

 year following, and an extraordinarily fine old male in pure breeding- 

 plumage, shot by Glaus Aeuckens on the 23rd of June 1880 ; four 

 months later, on the 26th of November, an old bird of this species 

 was shot in Scotland, in the neighbourhood of Stirling, and there 

 can be hardly any doubt that both the latter examples left their 

 home at the same time and from similar motives, and that while 

 following the direction of their spring migration, the one got no 

 farther than Heligoland, while the other, by a less perilous route, 

 got so much farther to the north-west. In this connection it 

 should be further remarked that a butterfly, Papilio podalirius, was 

 observed here on the same day, viz. 23rd of July 1880, as the last- 

 mentioned Chat, this being the second example of that species 

 which had hitherto occurred in Heligoland. It, too, had probably 

 been led beyond the limits of its home and across the sea by the 

 tine warm weather and light south-easterly and easterly winds. 



It is surprising that this Chat, whose far-off home extends no 

 farther than the southern shores of the Mediterranean, should have 

 been observed in the north so much more frequently than the 

 preceding species, 8. stapazina, which is found as a common breeding 

 bird throughout the whole of Greece. 



It would appear that, just as in autumn many species from the 

 far East are inclined more than others to follow in large numbers a 

 westerly line of migration, instead of proceeding in their normal 

 southerly course, so in spring many southern, and especially south- 

 eastern species are, through exceptional causes, more easily induced 

 to pass far beyond the limits of their breeding areas in a north- 

 westerly direction. Thus the Black-headed Bunting (Emberiza 

 melanocephala), which likewise inhabits Greece in large numbers, 

 has been killed here at least fifteen times ; while of E. cia and E. 

 cirlus, which are resident not only in Greece but even in districts 

 much farther north, the former has occurred here only once and 



