226 MESSRS. BLANFORD AND DRESSER ON [Apr. 21, 



including the throat and sides of the face and the feathers immediately 

 over the eye, jet-black ; quills dark hair-brown ; terminal half of 

 central and' the tips of the outer tail-feathers blackish brown ; rump, 

 upper and under tail-coverts, lower part of the breast, and abdomen 

 white ; under wing-coverts black ; under surface of wing dull sooty. 

 Culmen 0'65, wing 3 # 6, tail 2*65, tarsus 1. 



The under tail-coverts in some specimens are tinged with rufous. 



Female. Probably similar to the male, but browner on the back. 

 But little is as yet known respecting the changes of plumage due to 

 age and sex in this or the preceding species. 



The present species appears as a rule to have the crown much 

 greyer than is the case with S. leueomela ; and the crissum is almost 

 always white : the chief and most constant characteristic, however, is 

 thecolour of the inner webs of the primaries, which is black or blackish, 

 generally the former ; but in one or two specimens it is dull, smoky, 

 blackish grey, while in Saxicola leueomela the inner webs of the 

 primaries are invariably white. One single specimen of S. morio, 

 from Lahore, in Dresser's collection, has the under tail-coverts faintly 

 washed with rufous, but the inner webs of the primaries are very 

 distinctly smoky black. All the rest of the specimens have the 

 crissum and under tail-coverts white. A specimen from Mongolia, 

 in Canon Tristram's collection, has the quills dull brownish and the 

 feathers on the back edged with brown. 



Mr. Hume (Ibis, 1868, p. 233) states that he has ascertained be- 

 yond doubt that this bird is the young male of S.picata, Blyth. He 

 states that, out of 20 specimens collected, none were either females 

 or old birds, that he has intermediate forms, and that females shot in 

 company with both forms were identical. We have certainly no 

 specimens of S. morio marked as females ; but if 5. picata be the 

 adult, it is singular that no specimens of this form should have been 

 procured by Hemprich and Ehrenberg, and also that no correspond- 

 ing phase of the closely allied S. lugens should be known. We can 

 only say that further evidence is necessary. 



We have a male specimen of S. morio, shot in Persia in June, 

 when it must have been fully adult ; and the bird has been found in 

 the same stage in Turkestan. 



Hab. Eastern Europe, North-eastern Africa, and Western and 

 Central Asia, extending to North-western India. 



12. Saxicola albonigra. 



Saxicola alboniger, Hume, Stray Feathers, i. pp. 2, 185 (1872). 



Adult male (December). Head, neck, and upper parts, as far 

 as the lower portion of the back, throat to the upper part of the 

 breast, and axillaries jet-black ; quills, central rectrices, except at the 

 base, and tips of outer rectrices brownish black ; remainder of the 

 plumage pure white. Culmen 08, wing 3"8, tail 26, tarsus 1. 



Female. Similar to the male. 



Young. Differs in having the black more sooty in tinge. 



Hab. South-eastern Persia, Baluchistan, Sind. 



