526 NOTES. 



but as a fact the name does not stand, it has become a mere 

 synonyme, is dead for our purposes, and therefore the adjective 

 •punctatus is again available to characterize some other species 

 of the genus. Blyth did thus utilize it, and his name punctatus 

 should, in my opinion, most assuredly stand. 



With reference to what I said (ante, p. 21) as to the young 

 of P. fasciatus having a black bill, I wish now to record that 

 I have obtained a quite young bird of this species with the 

 upper mandible reddish. It is unfortunately not sexed. Except 

 in this one point, the colour of the upper mandible, it seems to 

 differ in no respect from two that I obtained myself from the 

 nest, and which had both mandibles blackish. 



In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1874, at 

 page 210, will be found a most valuable monograph of the 

 genus Saxicola by Messrs Blanford and Dresser. 



I shall have later some remarks to offer on this monograph, 

 but I am desirous of correcting at the earliest' possible oppor- 

 tunity an error into which the aiithors have been inadvertently 

 led in regard to Saxicola Hendersoni, Hume, owing possibly 

 to my having been unable, when I described and figured the 

 species, to describe or figure the summer or breeding plum- 



a s e - ..." 



Our authors identify this species with melanoleuca, Giild, 



eurymelama, Ehr., but it really belongs to an altogether differ- 

 ent section of the Wheatyears. 



Melanoleuca (of which I have specimens, one sent me long 

 ago by Mr. Sharpe as eurymelcena) pertains to the black 

 and white Saxicolas, which have the interscapulary region 

 white, whereas Hendersoni belongs to the section which has 

 this region black. How the mistake can have occurred I can- 

 not guess, because, although the only specimens of Hendersoni in 

 the British Museum are in winter plumage, still the bill of 

 melanoleuca is so much broader at the base than that of Hen- 

 dersoni, and the coloration of the back in winter of this latter so 

 manifestly foretells black in summer, that I should not have 

 thought it likely for any one to unite it and a white-backed 

 species like melanoleuca. 



I have quite recently obtained in Dr. Stoliczka^s collection 

 three males of Hendersoni in full breeding plumage. They 

 closely resemble S. leucomela, Pall., but are altogether slenderer 

 birds, have much smaller bills, have the black descending 



