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THE GREENLAND WHEATEAR SAXICOLA 

 CENANTHE LEUCORBHOA (GMELIN). 



BY 



C. B. TICEHURST, m.a., m.r.c.s., m.b.o.u. 



It is curious that so little attention should have been 

 paid to this bird of late years, and that its migrations 

 through Great Britain should be so little known. Gould, 

 in his " Birds of Great Britain," seems to have noted the 

 occurrence of this large Wheatear, but it was not until 

 1879 that Lord Clifton (now the Earl of Darnley) pointed 

 out that this race did not arrive on the Kent and Sussex 

 shores till May and, besides being larger, differed from 

 the small race in having a deeper reddish buff throat 

 and breast ; further, he did not know of its occurrence 

 west of Sussex {Ibis, 1879, pp. 256-7). 



As far as I have been able to ascertain no one, since 

 Lord Clifton wrote on the subject, has described its range 

 in Great Britain. I have examined 460 Wheatears or 

 Wheatears' wings, obtained in various parts of Great 

 Britain, and in many other parts of the world, and I think 

 that it can be said with certainty that the Greenland 

 Wheatear passes through the whole of Great Britain on 

 migration, for I have seen specimens of it from Yorkshire, 

 Suffolk, Norfolk, Kent, Sussex, Hants, Middlesex, Corn- 

 wall, Scilly Isles, Channel Isles, Pembrokeshire, co. 

 Wexford, and Shetland, whilst Mr. Barrington (Migration 

 of Birds at Irish Lights) records Wheatears with large 

 wings from cos. Cork, Donegal, Antrim, Dublin, and 

 Wicklow, which evidently belong to this race. 



It usually arrives in the south of England during the 

 last week in April, and the first week in May, and 

 continues passing through till the end of that month ; 

 a few early ones may sometimes be seen migrating with 

 the small race in the second and third weeks of April, 

 and the earliest record I have is April 15th. The return 

 journey takes place usually during the latter half of 

 September, though a few examples are recorded during 



