MENETBIES' WEE ATE AB. Ill 



generally a whitish, isabell like the eyelids; the hinder part of the 

 back more or less plainly sprinkled with rusty-ochre. The colours of 

 the upper part of the side ranges between a lively rusty fawn and 

 greyish ochre tending to sand yellow. Egyptian specimens are through- 

 out smaller than those of Abyssinia. Kriiper says that in the young 

 birds the lower part of the beak is yellow, the back a clear yellow 

 spotted, wings and their coverts speckled with rusty yellow." 



"The Isabell Coloured Wheatear is mostly a mountain bird; yet it 

 is met with less on bare rocks than on pastures and poor cattle fields, 

 on arable ground or in the desert. In Habesch it is a more frequent* 

 resident, and we met with it there even in the borders of the 

 snow-line. It appears singly in autumn, winter, and spring, in Egypt, 

 Arabia, on the islands and along the coasts of the Red Sea, in the 

 Somali Land, Nubia, Senaar, and Kordofan. In Abyssinia the 

 breeding-time falls in our winter season. I found the nest on the 

 28th. of February, 1853, on the high mountains of Semia at about 

 ten thousand feet elevation. It was placed on the shelving projec- 

 tion of a cleft in a horizontal rocky bank; was tolerably large, 

 thickly woven together with soft dry grass, and contained two clear 

 pale greenish fine-shelled eggs, eleven lines by seven and three 

 quarters. In the same month I remarked at Gondar half fledged 

 young birds which ran about nimbly on the pastures, and hid them- 

 selves in rat-holes. The old birds live mostly in pairs, keep much 

 on the ground, and are seldom seen on dry bushes, but more on 

 small landmarks and clumps of earth, where they sing and jerk their 

 tails. According to Krtiper, the above song is something like that 

 of the Dipper, or a shepherd's whistle." 



Mr. J. S. Allen ("Ibis," 1864,) in his Birds of Egypt and Nubia, 

 remarks: — "The only Wheatear found near Cairo (or rather Ghizeh) 

 in winter is S. isahellina of E,ilppell, described by Bree under the 

 name of S. saltatrix, and which Dr. Adams seems to have mistaken 



for the female of S. o&nanthe When the two birds are compared, 



^S*. isabellina will be found to be a larger and heavier bird altogether, 



with marked differences of bill, tarsus, etc I have found the plain 



of Thebes a particularly good place for those Chats peculiar to the 

 upper country." 



In accordance with the more general application of the name of 

 Riippell for this bird, I have used it in this edition. Canon Tristram 

 ("Ibis," 1867,) on the Ornithology of Palestine, has the following 

 remarks apropos to the subject: — "While our own Wheatear only 

 appears on migration, a very closely-allied form belonging to the 

 hotter regions of North Africa, S. isahellina, remains all the year 



