44 



Eveksmann's Redstart has a tolerably wide range, having been found from the Ural and Trans- 

 caspia to Lake Baikal and South-western Mongolia, and south to Bushire. It has, Professor 

 Menzbier informs me, been met with at least twice in the Western Ural range, on both occasions 

 by Mr. Zarudny, who obtained a very old male in the vicinity of Orenburg on the 10th (22ndj 

 of November, 1881, and a second on the 3rd (15th) November, 1888, near the small village 

 Blagoslovenka. In Transcaspia Dr. Radde and Mr. Walter obtained a female at Keltetschinar 

 on the 4th March, and a male at Kulkulau on the 17th of the same month. At the latter 

 place it was, they say (Vog. Transcasp. p. 56), not rare in the gardens, as also at Germab, and 

 they again observed this species at Duschak on the 30th March, probably on passage. After 

 March they did not meet with it, but believe that it is, to some extent, a winter resident in 

 Transcaspia. 



Col. Swinhoe records it as a winter visitant to Southern Afghanistan; and Mr. Blanford 

 says the same with regard to its presence in Persia. 



Mr. Oates (Faun. Brit. Ind., Birds, ii. p. 94) states that it is " a winter visitor to every 

 portion of Kashmir, extending on the west to Hazara and Afghanistan, and on to Asia Minor. 

 The most easterly locality from which I have seen a specimen of this bird is Kotokhai in the 

 Himalayas." 



Col. Biddulph (Ibis, 1881, p. 62) procured two males in Gilgit in December and January, 

 and says that it appeared to be common in the upper part of the Chitral Valley in November ; 

 and Mr. J. Scully writes {torn. cit. p. 445) that it is " a winter visitor to Gilgit, and is common at 

 an elevation of 5000 feet from the middle of October to the first week in March." He also states 

 (2nd Yark. Miss. p. 87) that he first observed this Redstart in the Karakash Valley below 

 Shahidula ; again in small numbers all over the plains of Turkestan during the winter. He also 

 shot one going up to Sarikol, but does not remember ever seeing it in Wakhan or in Yarkand 

 during the summer. 



According to Dr. Severtzoff, the present species occurs both in the breeding-season and in 

 winter in Turkestan, breeding at high elevations, and descending to the lowlands during the 

 winter. Mr. Pleske, in his work on the birds obtained by Col. Prjevalsky during his journeys in 

 Mongolia, states that Prjevalsky first met with it on the Lob-nor journey, early in October 1876, 

 on the southern slope of the Tian-Shan, in small numbers in winter in the valleys of the Lower 

 Tarim, and in September 1877 in the Dspair Mountains and on the River Dam. In 1879 he 

 observed the first in Saissansk on the 9th March, and it was seen in tolerable numbers between 

 Saissansk and the Ulungur, and on the central part of the Urungi River. In October 1 885 it 

 was met with on the Chotan-Darja, and at the winter stations in the oases of Akssu and Utsch- 

 Turfan it was also seen. It frequents the barberry thickets, feeding on the berries of this shrub in 

 the autumn and winter. It was also obtained by the brothers Grum-Grzimailo at Luktschin-kyr 

 and Tschiktym, in the Turfan district. 



During the summer it is found as far north as Siberia. Middendorff obtained it at Udskoj- 

 Ostrog; and Dr. Dybowski says (J. f. O. 1872, p. 262) that ''it was only observed in Ivultuk on 

 passage, and was somewhat rare, arriving early in April, and leaving in the autumn early in 

 September. On their arrival in the spring the small flocks of this species frequent the banks of 

 running streams. They can easily be recognized from afar by their peculiar call-note, which 



