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PKATINCOLA HEMPRICHI. 



(WHITE-TAILED STONECHAT.) 



Saxicola hemprichii, Ehr. Symb. Phys. Aves, fol. act (1829). 

 Pratincola hemprichii (Ehr.), Bp. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 304 (1850). 

 Motacilla (Saxicola) rubicola, Eversm. J. f. Orn. 1853, p. 289 (nee Linn.). 

 Pratincola ruhicola hemprichii (Ehr.), Heugl. Orn. Nordost-Afr. i. p. 339 (1869). 



Figura nulla. 



<S Pratincola rubicolce similis sed caudse dimidio basali (rectricibus centralibus exceptis) albo, supracaudalibus 

 albis nee nigra maculatis, sed vix rufescenti terminatis. 



2 Pratincola rubicolce similis sed pallidior, cauda ad basin rufescenti-cervino-albida. 



Adult Male (Annesley Bay) . Resembles Pratincola rubicola, but is ratber paler in general coloration, and 

 tbe tail is white at the base, the feathers being all white on the basal two thirds, except the two 

 central ones, which are white only at the base, all being also tipped and margined with sandy buff, the 

 two outer ones more distinctly so than the others; rump and upper tail-coverts white, tipped with 

 rufous. Total length about 4 - 7 inches, culmen 045, wing 2 - 85, tail 2 - 0, tarsus - 85. 



Adult Female (Thebes). Resembles the female of Pratincola rubicola, but is paler in general coloration, and 

 has the base of the tail buffy white. 



As stated in my article on the Stonechat, I cannot but consider that the present species, though 

 very closely allied, is fairly separable from Pratincola rubicola. That it occurs within the limits 

 of the Western PalBearctic Region there can be no doubt; for Eversmann remarks (/. c.) that 

 he often saw examples of the Stonechat on the southern slopes of the Ural which had the 

 major portion of the tail white ; but I do not possess, nor have I ever seen, a European-killed 

 specimen. 



Its range is very restricted ; for it is only known with certainty to inhabit Western Asia, 

 South-eastern Europe, and North-east Africa. Von Heuglin states that, though tolerably rare, 

 it is in all probability resident in Egypt, in the desert portion of Arabia, and in the wooded 

 portions of Abyssinia ; and Mr. Blanford obtained it in this last country. In the Berlin Museum 

 I examined a series of specimens obtained by Hemprich and Ehrenberg in Egypt, which, I may 

 remark, differed considerably in the quantity of white on the tail, some having only the base of 

 the rectrices white, whereas in others only the terminal third was black. 



In Asia it does not appear to range far. Severtzoff states that it breeds in Turkestan ; but, 

 though De Filippi met with it at Marend, north-west, and Udian, south-west of Tabriz, and 

 mentions that he saw specimens at St. Petersburg collected in the Kirghis steppes, Mr. Blanford 

 did not observe it in Persia. 



Von Middendorff and Radde speak of the Stonechats obtained by them in Siberia as having 



5y 



