BUS SET WEE ATE AB. 99 



bird containing four eggs, in a very artfully selected hole under a 

 stone at the top of a quarry-hole bank. The bird seems to like an 

 earthern floor and stone roof for its habitation, and chooses the site 

 of its nest with great wisdom. Snakes infest these rocks at the foot 

 of the 'Chair,' and must destroy numbers of the poor birds and their 

 young. Manuel, our young friend, told me he once surprised a 

 snake in the act of devouring some young Crested Larks. The 

 common bright green lizard ('iguan') is also very plentiful in this 

 neighbourhood, and they may be partial to sucking eggs. Their head 

 is snake-like enough for such atrocities. Anyhow stapazina evidently 

 thinks a perpendicular bank and an overhanging stone the best pro- 

 tection against intrusive reptiles, and it is no doubt quite right. It 

 would have been difficult for a snake to have got at the nest of 

 to-day." 



Edwards, in 1743, figured this bird, but unfortunately he figured 

 the female of the next bird, which Linnaeus had previously designated 

 S. stapazma. For this reason Mr, Dresser has thought fit to change 

 the name of the present bird to 7'ufa, after Brisson (1760), while 

 he applies the name of stapazina to the bird hitherto described as 

 S. aurita. I think this is a great mistake. The two birds are so 

 closely allied that very few naturalists consider them as distinct species, 

 but at all events they are known as S. stapazina with a black chin, 

 and S. aurita with a white one, and they have been so understood since 

 the time of Temminck. Why create confusion, by changing names 

 so well understood, simply because Edwards, one hundred and thirty 

 years ago, made a slight mistake? I shall continue the nomenclature 

 in use for both birds, premising that any of my readers are at liberty 

 to consider the two birds as one if they think fit. It is simply a 

 question of individual opinion. I cannot agree either to recognize 

 Saxicola melanoleuca of Guldenstadt, (aS'. Hendersonii, Hume,) as any- 

 thing but an eastern form of S. stapazina. Mr. Dresser has given a 

 drawing of the bird, but he has failed to make them two in his text. 



The adult male in breeding plumage has the top of the head, 

 nape, and upper part of the back, rich buff; lower part of the back 

 white, mottled with black; rump, upper tail coverts, and three parts 

 of the tail beneath, white; throat, and underneath eyes and ears, 

 upper wing coverts, and two medium tail feathers, glossy black. 

 Wings blackish brown; secondaries fringed with grey, and the pri- 

 maries underneath blackish brown; chest, abdomen, flanks, and under 

 tail coverts, light buff", more or less deep on the chest; forehead, and 

 a line between the black of the throat and the neck, creamy white. 

 Beak and feet, black; iris dark brown. 



