collected in Transcaucasia. 415 



Thus Caucasian birds must either be identical with C. rvfi- 

 ventris Hempr. et Ehr., or belong to a somewhat different 

 local form. Herr Madarasz (Ann. Mus. Nat. Hung. i. 1903, 

 p. 559) has named a Dipper from the Caucasus ' ' C. cavca- 

 sicus," but his description is poor and misleading; he had 

 several specimens, adult and young, of the same Caucasian 

 Dipper, of which he named adult (typical) specimens " C. cash- 

 meriensis" and described the young as new et G. caucasicus/' 

 pointing to the features of immature dress as specific 

 differences. Till the Caucasian birds have been carefully 

 compared with Palestine specimens (there are none in the 

 St. Petersb. Museum) I consider it better to leave them under 

 the name C. rufiventris. 



78. Pratincola maura Pall. 



In his work on the Birds of European Russia and the 

 Caucasus * M. Menzbier states that Pratincola maura Pall. 

 ie probably " visits the Caucasus on migration, " but in 

 any case only near the shores of the Caspian Sea." 

 " Probably" is not quite a happy expression, as already 

 (in 1884) Dr. Radde had described this bird clearly (Orn. 

 Cauc. p. 207, Russ. ed., specimens 1 and 2, naming 

 P. rubicola L., typ.). But the nesting of P. maura here has 

 been proved only by Mr. Kobylin. He states that this bird 

 is a typical inhabitant of the bush-covered slopes of the 

 « Little Caucasus" (Mt. Nakala, 4000 f. h.), and also 

 of the country near Ssuram (2400 f. h.) and v. Gertvis- 

 ubano. He has sent me several specimens, procured in 

 the latter half of July. Adult males have white unspotted 

 upper tail-coverts, no white at the base of the tail-feathers, 

 and blackish-brown under wing-coverts quite narrowly edged 

 with whitish ; the axillaries have blackish-brown bases and 



* M. A. Menzbier, 'Birds of Russia,' ii. 1905, pp. 1013 and 1015. I 

 am bound constantly to mention M. Menzbier's compilation, not on 

 account of its intrinsic value (it is confessedly only a popular work, too 

 closely— I should add — following Seebohm's ' Hist. Br. B.'j, but because 

 it is the first (and as yet the last) more or less complete account of the 

 distribution of Birds in European Russia and the Caucasus. 



