TURDINEA. 21 
THE ISABELLINE WHEATEAR. 
SaxfcoLa ISABELL{NA, Riippell. 
My friend the Rev. H. A. Macpherson brought to me in the 
flesh for identification a bird shot by Mr. Thomas Mann, ona 
ploughed field and quite alone, at Allonby, Cumberland, on 11th 
November 1887 ; it proved to be the Isabelline Wheatear, and was 
exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society on December 6th. 
This south-eastern bird had not previously been recorded from 
Heligoland or any part of Western Europe, but it so closely re- 
sembles the female of the previous species that it might easily 
escape notice. The specimen, a female, is figured above, and Mr. 
Macpherson subsequently presented it to the British Museum. 
The Isabelline Wheatear is an early spring-visitor to South-eastern 
Russia, especially the province of Astrachan and the arid plains of 
the Caspian, and to Asia Minor. From the above, after breeding, 
it takes its departure in autumn ; but in Palestine, Egypt, Eastern 
Africa down to Somali- and Masai-land, Abyssinia, and Arabia, it 
appears to be a resident. Eastward it is found in summer across 
Asia—south of 56° N. and up to 10,000 feet above sea-level—to 
