THE BIRDS OF MESOPOTAMIA, 401 
This species is rather more of a bare desert bird than the other wheatears 
even, and Buxton noted its partiality for salt desert with scanty vegetation 
of scattered bushes of Sueda and Lycium,—the sort of country where it and 
Sylvia nana reign supreme! Here it is not uncommon; elsewhere, though 
met with, it is somewhat local and few in number, Pitman saw two chasing 
each other, and the male singing well, on January 29th at Samarra. 
Six specimens examined ; Beled, 22-2-19 (P. Z. C. and R. E. C.); Kut, 25-7-18 
(P. A. B.); @, Basra, 27-2-18 (Armstrong) ; Suleimania, 5-9-19 (Ross); Kut, 
4-1-17, Samarra, 7-2-18 (C. R. P.). 
111. Red-tailed Wheatear. AEnanthe xanthoprymna. 
(1) Bnanthe xanthoprymna xanthoprymna. Hemp and Erh, (Symb. 
Phys. fol. dd., 1833-—Nubia). 
(2) Hnanthe xanthoprymna cummingi, Whit. (Bull. B. O. C. x, p, 17, 
1899—F ao). 
(3) Ananthe xanthoprymna chrysopygia (de Fil) (Arch. Zool. Genova 
ii., p., 381. 1863—Demavend in N. Persia). 
It is unfortunate that we have no records or specimens of any form of this 
Wheatear and so can add nothing to what has already been recorded, but I will 
give a short reswmé of the three races in order that future workers who are fortu- 
nately placed may know what is wanted. 
(i) This, the first described form, is a rare bird and has been found in what 
are evidently its winter quarters, or its passage route, in Nubia, Egypt, and the 
Red Sea Coast, and according to Zarudny it nests in the desolate hills which 
border the lower Karun on the east side.* 
(ii) Cumming’s Wheatear is a still rarer bird apparently ; it was described 
from a specimen which Cumming obtained at Fao on passage; he gives it as 
passing in August and September and again in March and April. (Ibis, 1886, 
p-. 483, where Sharpe erroneously called it mesta). It has been found twice, in 
January and November in Berber Prov. Sudan, and twice in the Red Sea Prov. 
in March, Zarudny says it is common on passage on the heights of the Jebel 
‘Tniie near Ahwaz. 
Possibly these two birds are not so rare as they appear to be; one can well 
imagine that a species which breeds in such out-of-the-way places as hills in S, 
W. Persia, which presumably migrates across Arabia and winters perhaps in 
unfrequented parts of Africa and has not a wide distribution, might well for many 
years escape the eyes of ornithologists. 
Zarudny says that, according to the testimony of Arab hunters and shepherds, 
cumming? nests in the same hills as zanthoprymna. If this is so, then it would 
seem almost certain that one is a dimorphic variety of the other, but this would 
certainly have to be founded on better proof than the statements of Arab 
shepherds ! 
(3) This is the best known of the three, it breeds in the Persian Highlands 
and is not at all uncommon in Beluchistan and N. W. India in winter. Zarudny 
lists it as a winter visitor and passage migrant in small numbers in the Karun 
area and thinks it may nest also. He considers this bird a species of itself and 
cummingi as a race of xanthoprymna; he may be right but one cannot really 
determine this until the status of all of these is better known, and so I have left 
them, as Hartert placed them, for the present. ‘ 
Chrysopygia may always be known by its greyish underparts, isabelline grey 
upperparts and having red at the base of the tail; sexes similar. Cummingi 
male like chrysopygia but the head and throat black ; xanthoprymna like cum- 
mingt but base of tail white ; in the last two, sexes not alike, All three have 
reddish upper tail coverts. 
hia aL an eee eee 
* Since writing this, I have received from Cheesman an adult male of this race obtained 
‘close to Baghdad on September 23, 1920 
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