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likewise greatly obscured, the feathers being tipped here and there with rufous ; the underparts are 

 paler, and the entire plumage much duller than in spring. 



Adult Female in summer (Pagham, Sussex, July). Upper parts dull blackish brown, all the feathers being 

 margined with reddish brown, giving a somewhat striped appearance ; the sides of the neck dull white, 

 marked with pale rufous ; alar patch small and but slightly perceptible ; underparts generally dull light 

 rufous, with a yellowish tinge ; throat-feathers blackish at the base, dull rufous at the tip ; beak and 

 legs brownish black. 



Nestling (Hampstead). Upper parts blackish brown, narrowly striated on the head, and more broadly on 

 the back with yellowish brown ; upper tail-coverts rufous ; wings and tail dark brown, the feathers on 

 the latter edged with rufous buff, primaries narrowly edged with rufous buff, secondaries and wing- 

 coverts more broadly margined with rufous ; underparts dull ochreous, with a slight rufous tinge, on 

 the breast and throat indistinctly striped with dark brown. 



Obs. Specimens of the Stone-Chat from various parts of Europe vary somewhat in coloration, those from 

 Southern Europe being somewhat darker- and purer- coloured ; but this is by no means a constant 

 difference, as I have British-killed examples as intensely coloured as any from Southern Europe, and 

 quite as black on the upper parts as any of the large series of Indian examples of so-called P. indica I 

 have examined. The South-African Stone-Chat, P. torquata, L. (P. pastor, Cuv.), very closely resembles 

 bright examples of our bird, differing chiefly in having the rufous colour on the breast more restricted, 

 and the abdomen purer white. P. salax, Verr. (Rev. Zool. 1851, p. 307), as I am informed by Dr. O. 

 Finsch, runs into P. Sibylla, differing from that species in having a somewhat different distribution of 

 the brown on the breast; one specimen oi P. sibylla, from Madagascar, which he examined, forms, he 

 assures me, a link midway between these two species. 



The Madagascar Stone-Chat (P. sibylla), though closely allied to P. torquata, appears, judging from the 

 specimens I have examined, to be a good local race or species, having the bar on the breast very deep 

 in tint and restricted to a large semicircular patch clearly bounded by the pure white of the rest of the 

 underparts. 



P. borbonica, from Reunion, of which Captain Shelley has placed a pair at my disposal, may at once be 

 distinguished in both sexes, which, like the other Stone-Chats are dissimilar, by the chin and throat 

 being pure white. 



P. hemprichii, Ehr. (Symb. Phys. fol. aa, 1829), from N.E. Africa, differs in having the base of the tail 

 white. When in Berlin, in September last, I examined all the specimens collected by Hemprich and 

 Ehrenberg, and found the white on the tail extremely variable, in some extending to within one third 

 of the end of the tail, whereas in others it was barely visible. 



Throughout India, China, and Japan the predominating species appears to be P. rnbicola ; and from the two 

 latter countries I have only seen that form, P. indica being identical with it. Canon Tristram has sent 

 to me for examination the types of his Pratincola robusta (Ibis, 1870, p. 497), which certainly appears 

 to be a fairly distinct local race, differing from P. rubicola in having the breast very dark rich rusty 

 red, this colour extending along the flanks, the rest of the abdomen being pure white. P. robusta is 

 also very large, therein contrasting much with the ordinary Stone-Chat of India, which is, as a rule, 

 small in size. 



Besides this, of all the Indian Stone-Chats I have examined I can only make one, P. leucura, Blyth (Journ. 

 As. Soc. xvi. p. 474), distinct, that species being easily recognizable by having the four outer rectrices 

 white on the inner web nearly to the tip, and all the tail-feathers at the base white on both webs, as is 

 the case with P. hemprichii. As may be supposed, this bird is a resident species ; and it is found in 



