SAXIOOLA ALBINIGEA. 



(HUME'S CHAT.) 



Saxicola alboniger, Hume, Stray Feathers, i. p. 2 (1873). 



Dromolcea alboniger, id. torn. cit. p. 185 (1873). 



Saxicola albonigra (Hume), Blanf. & Dresser, P. Z. S. 1874, p. 226. 



Saxicola albinigra (Hume), Oates, Faun. Brit. India, Birds, ii. p. 70 (1890). 



Figura unica. 

 Blanford, E. Persia, ii. pi. xi. 



Ad. capite, collo, gukt, dorso antico et tectricibus alarum nitenti-nigris : dorso postico supra et subcaudalibus, 

 pectore et abclomine albis : remigibus sordide nigris : cauda alba nigro terminate, rostro et pedibus 

 nigris : iridc fusca. 



Adult Male (Kandahar, November 28tb). Head, neck, throat, the upper part of the back, upper and under 

 wing-coverts, and axillaries glossy black; lower back, rump, upper tail-coverts, breast, abdomen, and 

 under tail-coverts pure white ; quills dull black, paler on the under surface ; tail white, broadly termi- 

 nated with black, which is again narrowly tipped with white : bill and legs black ; iris dark brown. 

 Total length about 6 inches, culmen - 8, wing 3'9, tail 2'55, tarsus l - 05. 



Adult Female (Upper Sind). Undistinguishable in plumage from the male. 



Young. Similar to the adult. 



The present Chat, remarkable on account of there being no difference between the plumage of 

 the adult male and the female or the nestling, has, so far as we at present know, a very limited 

 range, being found in Persia, Baluchistan, Sind, and Gilgit, where it appears to be resident — 

 frequenting the hills during the breeding-season, and the valleys and lowlands during the winter 

 months. 



Mr. Blanford obtained this bird in Baluchistan, where he does not think it common ; and on 

 the 10th May he found close to Karman, in Persia, a female and two young birds in a small 

 cave under a limestone hill, and remarks that though the young were nestlings, scarcely able to 

 fly, they were precisely similar in coloration to the adults. Sir O. St. John did not meet with it 

 at Shiraz, but he obtained (Ibis, 1889, p. 163) an adult male and a nestling in May near 

 Kandahar, where Col. Swinhoe also found it common throughout the winter, but missed it after 

 the middle of February. 



Col. Biddulph says (Ibis, 1881, p. 58) that it was never very common in Gilgit, but is the 

 only Chat which remains there in winter. He procured specimens both in January and June. 

 Mr. Oates (Faun. Brit. Inch, Birds, ii. p. 70) gives the range of the present species as " the hills 



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