Contriintions to the Ornithology of India, ^c. 189 



which thong-h it originated with Mr. Blyth, has been adopted 

 and fig-ured by Mr. Gould. Mr. Gould remarks in regard to 

 atrogularis and deserti — " While I find them to be very similarly 

 colored^ I do not fail to observe that the specimens of S. deserti 

 in my collection at leasts have rather longer tarsi^ somewhat 

 shorter wings and smaller bills^ than those of atrogularis ; but 

 the great difference exists in the coloring of the under surface of 

 their shouldere, that part being nearly white in the former and 

 jet black in the latter, and that this black coloring of the under 

 shoulder is the best character by which the Indian bird may be 

 distinguished from its African ally.""^ Now this best character 

 is absolutely worthless ; in the breeding plumage, the under sur- 

 face of the shoulder is black ; in the winter plumage, it is almost 

 entirely white, and with a large series before one, every possible 

 proportion of black and white in the axillaries and wing lining 

 may be pointed out. As regards the bills and tarsi, no such dis- 

 tinctions hold good between my African and Asiatic specimens, 

 and I entertain no doubt whatsoever that atrogularis must be 

 placed in future like montana as a synonym of deserti. 



8. deserti was common to a' degree throughout Sindh, as it is 

 eveiywhere in the cold season throughout the North-Westera 

 Provinces, the Punjab, and Rajpootana. The bleaker and more 

 inhospitable the barren wastes stretched away, the more at home, 

 true to his name, seemed the desert wheatear. It was not 

 however only in Sindh that this bird occurred, we equally met 

 with it at Pusnee and other places .along the Mekran Coast, and 

 I have no doubt that, in suitable localities, its range extends un- 

 broken from Cawnpore to Cairo. 



497.^K,nticilla rufiventris, Vieill. B, ^hoeni- 



curoides, Moore. B. erytliroprocta, Gould. 



I have in a separate paper which will appear in an early num- 

 ber, recorded my views as to the changes of plumage of our very 

 variable Indian redstart. It will be sufficient here to mention 

 that almost all the specimens I preserved were, with one excep- 

 tion, either in the autumn or plmnicuroides stage, or in the 

 stage between that and the full winter plumage. I obtained 

 one male on the Mekran Coast on the 15th February, in the 

 garb of the adult female. I do not at all understand this j 

 structurally it is in every respect identical with full plumaged 

 males obtained in the same locality, and throughout Sindh and 

 the Upper Punjab, and I can only imagine that the failure to 

 assume the masculine garb must have been due to some 

 accident or lusiis natures ; but it ^vas an adult male, and its 

 plumage is that of the adult female. 



