304 BRITISH BIRDS. 



SAXICOLA DESERTI. 

 DESERT- WHEATEAR. 



(PLATE 9.) 



Saxicola stapazina (Linn.}, apud Licht, Eoersm. Reis. Suchara, p. 128 (1823). 

 Saxicola deserti, Temm. PL Col. pi. 359. fig. 2 (1825) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



Gray, Bonaparte, Cabanis, Heuglin, Jerdon, Dresser, &c. 

 Saxicola isabellina, Riipp. apud Temm. PI. Col. pi. 472. fig. 1 (1829). 

 Saxicola pallida, Riipp. Neue Wirb. Vog. p. 80 (1835). 

 Saxicola atrogularis, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Seng. xvi. p. 131 (1847). 

 Saxicola salina, Eversm. Butt. Soc. Mosc. xxiii. pt. 2, p. 567, pi. viii. fig. 2 (1850). 

 Saxicola gutturalis, Licht. Nomencl. Av. p. 35 (1854). 

 Saxicola homochroa, Tristram, Ibis, 1859, p. 59. 

 Saxicola albomarginata, Salvad. Atti Soc. Tor. p. 507 (1870). 



The claim of the Desert-Chat to a place in the British fauna rests upon 

 the capture of a single specimen. This bird was obtained on the 26th of 

 November 1880, near Stirling ; and its occurrence was recorded by Mr. J. 

 Dalgleish in the 'Transactions of the Royal Physical Society' for the 

 following year. It was killed by a Mr. Watt, gamekeeper to Lord Balfour, 

 of Burleigh, whilst sitting on a stone in a piece of moorland at the side of 

 Gartmorn Dam, on the property of the Earl of Zetland, near Alloa. It even- 

 tually came into the possession of Mr. J. Taylor of Alloa, who, struckby its 

 unusually late appearance and different markings from those of the Common 

 Wheatear, sent it to Mr. Dagleish. This gentleman kindly forwarded it 

 for exhibition at the first April meeting of the Zoological Society last year, 

 when I had an opportunity of examining it. It is a male in autumn 

 plumage. Although ten days elapsed ere it was preserved, it has been 

 mounted very successfully. The contents of the stomach consisted of 

 small flies. To the European fauna the claim of the Desert-Chat is equally 

 slight. It rests upon two specimens obtained on the ornithologically 

 famous little island of Heligoland, which are now in the possession of Mr. 

 Gaetke. One of these birds is a male, with black throat, in autumn plumage, 

 captured on the 26th of October 1856 ; the other a female, without the 

 black throat, also in autumn plumage, taken on the 4th of October in the 

 following year. The true home of this interesting little bird is, as its name 

 implies, dry and sandy regions. Although thus comparatively an unknown 

 bird north of the Mediterranean, it has nevertheless a very wide and 

 extensive range. It is a resident wherever the country is suitable to its 

 habits, from the trackless wastes of the Algerian Sahara eastwards to the 

 plains of India. It is found in Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Arabia, and the 

 highlands of Southern Persia, occasionally wandering into Abysinnia 

 during the winter. Still further to the north and east it breeds on the 

 plateaux of Turkestan, at varying elevations from 1000 to 12,300 feet 



