NOTES ON SOME OF OUR INDIAN STONE CHATS. 241 



subterminal brown band from 02 to 0*3 wide on this web, but 

 the rest have only a small patch of brown near the shaft close 

 to the tip — the pair next the centre having the patch rather 

 larger. 



There are traces of a dark streak from the base of the lower 

 mandible down either side of the throat, expanding 1 on the sides 

 of the breast ; doubtless in breeding plumage this streak and 

 patch are black or blackish. 



The females, though smaller, seem to be at this season 

 precisely similar, except that they show the dark streak and 

 patch much less. 



I have no idea what the breeding plumage may be like, and 

 though the bird must breed somewhere in Central Asia, I have not 

 yet noticed (though doubtless it may have been so) that it has 

 been described in summer plumage thence. 



I hope these remarks will call the attention of ornithologists 

 in North-Western India to this species. I may add for their 

 benefit that, in the winter plumage, both sexes bear a certain 

 superficial resemblance to the female P. lencura, but this has a 

 shorter and much broader and more triangular bill, has no white 

 in the tail, has a mere trace of the conspicuous superciliary 

 band, has no white on the outer webs of the earlier primary 

 greater coverts, has the rump and upper tail-coverts uniform 

 pale brownish rufescent, a wing about 2 '6 ; axillaries and 

 wing lining pale fulvous, instead of pure white, is not nearly 

 so clearly striated on the upper surface, differs in the propor- 

 tions of the primaries, (2nd=8th, 3rd shorter than 4th.) &c, 

 so that there ought to be no confounding the birds. As for the 

 male lencura, which has white in the tail, though somewhat less 

 than rubetraoides, its black head and throat and brightish 

 rufous breast, and white patches on either side at the base of 

 the throat, in fact P. mdica, like head and breast, prevent its 

 ever being confounded with rubetraoides. 



Macrorhyncha female is no doubt very like rubetraoides above 

 and below, is much the same size, and has a very similar slender 

 bill, but macrorhyncha, female, has no white in the tail, no pure 

 white on the primary greater coverts, not so conspicuous an eye 

 streak, a much browner rump, and no white tertiary greater 

 coverts or under scapulars, as rubicola, indica, rubetra and 

 rubetraoides have, &c, &c, so that this likewise should not 

 be confounded with rubetraoides. 



At page 131 (ante) I reproduced Dr. Tristram's description 

 of Pratincola robusta, and suggested that it might be equivalent 

 to P. macrorhyncha, Stoliczka. 



At that time I was not aware that I had any specimens of 

 the supposed P. robusta. 



