120 
BLACK WIIEATEAR. 
tliese remarks than the fact of a good and practical 
ornithologist like the Rev. Mr. Tristram, who adopts 
Cabanis’s division of the genus, having the greatest 
possible difficulty in deciding on which side to place 
the Bushchat, ( Saxicola philotliamna,) which he dis- 
covered in Northern Africa, and which he has described 
and figured in the “Ibis,” vol. i., p. 299. 
The Black Wheatear is an inhabitant of the warm 
and southern parts of Europe, especially, being found 
in Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, South of France, 
the Pyrenees, the Hautes and Basse Alps, the Appe- 
nines, (accidentally,) the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, 
and Greece. It is included in Captain Loche’s list of 
Algerian birds. It does not appear in Mr. Carte’s 
interesting list of the birds of the Crimea, kindly sent 
to me by Dr. Leith Adams. 
The Rev. H. B. Tristram’s account of this bird, as 
observed by him in Northern Africa, is so interesting 
that I shall transcribe his notice of it from the “Ibis,” 
vol. i., p. 296. 
“The Chats are the tribe of all others the most uni- 
versally-distributed in the Desert, yet having specifically 
very narrow limits. They are, too, the only class of 
birds there which have any distinctive or conspicuous 
colouring. The Larks, of various species, or the Sand 
Grouse, may be on all sides, yet only a practised eye 
can detect a sign of life in the waste. But the lively 
Chat is seen afar; his clear bright colouring gleams in 
contrast with the universal brown around him. Conscious 
of his attractions he attempts no concealment, but relies 
for safety on his watchful eye and rapid movements, 
and, above all, on the snug retreat which he always 
has open before him — his hole in the rocks, or his 
burrow in the sand. 
