THE WHITE-RUMPED CHAT 
Saxicola leucopygia 
General plumage, black with slae-blue reflections ; rump, 
white; tail, black; outside feathers, white; beak and 
legs, black; eyes, brown. Length varying from 6} to 7 
inches. 
I conFess to finding the Chats a puzzling order of 
birds to identify when seen in the open. In the 
case of some, not only is the female larger, but of 
such a different aspect and dull sandy colour that 
it is really difficult to believe that it is in any 
way related to the startlingly plumaged black and 
white male bird. All the Chats love the desert 
more than the cultivated ground, and I myself 
have never seen this Chat save on rocks or sand. 
The visitor going to the Tombs of the Kings at 
Thebes, or around the Pyramids, should certainly 
see this bird, as it is there common, and owing to 
its way of flitting sharply from one point to another, 
and sitting high up on the top of some boulder, with 
its strongly contrasted black and white plumage, is 
always a very conspicuous object. What it gets 
to live on in these desert places is hard to see, but 
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