133 



Additional §ota on «ome of our Indian ^tonechak 



Through the kindness and courtesy of Canon Tristram and 

 Mr. Brooks I have had an opportunity of examining and com- 

 paring the two types of Pratincola robusta, referred to in the 

 Ibis of 1870, p. 497. 



I may say at once that, in my opinion, these two types have 

 no earthly connection with each other. The one, said to be 

 from Mysore, is a magnificent bird of the torquata vel pastor 

 vel sybilla type, with the lower abdomen, vent and lower tail- 

 coverts snow white, and with the axillaries and a good deal of 

 the wing lining also white ; the other, the Himalayan bird, is 

 our large Eastern Stonechat which I discussed so fully, Vol. V, 



f>p. 242, 243, &c, and which has the abdomen, vent, and 

 ower tail-coverts rufous, and the axillaries mostly blackish 

 brown. 



This second type we may neglect as it is quite clear that 

 Canon Tristram's real type was the Mysore bird. Whether 

 the Eastern Himalayan and Assam race requires a separate 

 specific designation I will rediscuss further on. For the 

 present I propose to refer only to the bird that I consider the 

 real type of robusta, Tristram. This is said to have come from 

 Mysore, and from the original label which it bears I believe 

 this to be correct, since it has the color of the eyes recorded 

 on it in the peculiar way that was customary years ago at the 

 Bangalore Museum. 



Now at first sight I should have identified this, unhesitatingly 

 with P. torquata. It agrees, in most respects, perfectly with 

 the picture given by LeVailliant, except in so far as the breast 

 is a little deeper cinnamon rufous in the Mysore bird, and the 

 latter wants the nuchal collar. 



The dimensions agree exactly with those given for this 

 species by Layard and Von Heuglin. But against this has to 

 be noted, first Canon Tristram's remark that the colors are 

 more intense than in pastor. In this of course he may have 

 been mistaken ; he thought that his bird was " very much 

 larger than any known species of Pratincola" so that clearly 

 he could not have had by him specimens of pastor vel torquata 

 vel sybilla (1 do not know whether these are really two or 

 three races) or he would not have said this, since these are 

 quite as large, and he may have relied for his diagnosis of 

 colors on LeVaillant's or some other author's plate. 



But secondly, Von Heuglin says of pastor, " Subalaribus 

 nigris."" If this were correct it would set the question at rest, 

 for most certainly no one could describe robusta as being 



