252 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



j^o. I.— A FROG SWALLOWING A SNIPE. 

 When out Snipe-shooting on the Coast, on the 4th March last, I -wounded 

 a Snipe which then flew into a Palm garden. While I was hunting for it my 

 attention was attracted by a rustling sound a few yards off. I prepared to 

 fire, but nothing appeared, so I approached to the edge of a pond where I 

 found the missing Snipe in the jaws of an enormous frog, in the act of being 

 swallowed. The frog was driven off and dived to the bottom ; the Snipe was 

 recovered, but was found to be quite dead. 



C. HUDSON, C.S. 

 Geesappa FAULS^lSth April, 1892. 



No. II.— NOTE ON THE BLACK-TAILED EOCK-CHAT. 



Cercomela CMyrmecocichlaJ melanura, Eiipp. 



Jebdon's sole authority for including the Black-tailed Rock-chat in his 

 Birds of India appears to have been that among the drawings of Sir A. Burnes 

 was one of a saxicoline bird, procured in Sind, which Mr. Blyth identified as 

 Cercomela melanura^ Eiipp. 



No other observer appears to have met with it in that locality. 



Mr. Hump, was of opinion that the drawing represented his Eed-tailed 

 Wheat-ear, fSaxicola kingij, but the birds differ so much that I cannot agree 

 with him. 



In the Black-tailed Rock-chat the upper parts are dark ashy-grey ; much 

 paler beneath, gradually passing into the sullied white of the vent ; the tail is 

 black throughout. 



In the Eed-tailed Wheat-ear the rump and upper tail coverts are bright 

 rufous-fawn, and the tail more or less bright ferruginous, with a sub-terminal 

 black band with rufous- white tippings. 



Mr. Hume argues that when the wings of the Eed-tailed Wheat-ear are 

 closed, and the rump and upper tail coverts hidden by them, and only the 

 black tips of the central tail feathers shown, it does bear a certain resemblance 

 to the figure of the Black-tailed Eock-chat ; but surely the artist would not 

 have taken pains to conceal the only bright colour of the bird, on the contrary 

 he would have certainly made the most of it. 



I found the bird very common at Aden, where it is one of the very few resident 

 species, and I consider that it is not at all unlikely that a specimen or two 

 may occasionally wander so far east as Sind, and I think we may safely 

 conclude that Blyth's identification was correct. 



The bird, owing to its sober coloration, is not likely to attract the attention 

 of any but the most practised Ornithologist. 



