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tion at Bebek), says that it was captured by bird-lime near Haskeuy in the autumn of 1874, and 

 adds that Mr. E. C. Taylor possesses one obtained by Dr. Kriiper near Smyrna. Captain Elwes, 

 who made a journey in Asia Minor in the spring of 1874 for the purpose of collecting, met 

 with the present species there, and brought two specimens home for comparison and identifica- 

 tion, one of which he presented to me. From his observations and the investigations made 

 in the Taurus by Mr. C. G. Danford, it would appear that the true home of the present species 

 is in that corner of the Western Paleearctic Region ; and as it has remained so long almost 

 unknown, its range must be, comparatively speaking, but small. Captain Elwes informs me that 

 he first observed this bird at Ephesus, in Asia Minor, and was at once attracted by its con- 

 spicuous white alar patches. He saw a pair sitting on the ruins of one of the old temples, and 

 shot the male without difficulty ; but the hen bird escaped ; and though he saw one or two other 

 pairs, he never succeeded in shooting a female. Afterwards he saw it on one occasion in Lycia, 

 but did not observe it in the two hundred miles of intervening country. In habits, he says, it 

 much resembles the Black Redstart, frequenting open stony hills and perching on stones and on 

 the stalks of the giant fennel plants which grow amongst them. Mr. C. G. Danford appears, 

 however, to have discovered the true home of the present species in the Taurus mountains ; for 

 not only did he obtain many specimens, but he found it breeding, and was fortunate enough to 

 take its nest and eggs, which he has lent me for examination. I am also indebted to this 

 gentleman for the following notes, viz. : — " The river Sihoun, after leaving the gorge of Anasclia, 

 flows rapidly down a straight narrow valley, whose high mountain-sides are in some places huge 

 walls of purple-grey and orange rock, and in others are clothed with the varying greens of oak, 

 fir, spruce, and cedar. Some four miles along this valley, through willows (Salix purpurea), 

 tamarisks (Tamarix smyrnensis), and thickets set with great white thorns, bring one to the 

 summer village of Kara pongar (black spring). It is a sorry collection of a dozen huts placed on 

 ;i grassy slope near the spring, which bursts in large volumes from a dark ivy-hung rock, and 

 winds down to the river through a most beautiful wood of plane and other trees. The ground 

 here was a perfect carpet of violets and primroses, with anemones of every shade between deep 

 purple and pure white. Further on the scenery becomes very wild, the deciduous trees cease, 

 the rocks rise in jagged peaks, and the river tumbles away down impassable ravines. 



"This plane-grove is the haunt of both White-winged and common Redstarts, the former 

 being rather the more numerous. It is certainly much the shyer bird, perches high, drops 

 suddenly down to the grass to feed, and flies up again at the slightest alarm. Such was the 

 difficulty of getting at them that, although the wood held at least a dozen pairs, it took two guns 

 a couple of days' stalking and lying in wait to bag three brace of this small game; and of these, 

 four were killed by long flying-shots. 



"The elevation of this locality is 2400 feet, and the time of observation 29th March to 

 8th April. R. mesoleuca occurred nowhere else in the neighbourhood of Anasclia, and was not 

 again met with until found breeding among the cedars and junipers on the Karanfil dagh, at an 

 elevation of at least 5000 feet. Here, on the 24th April, a pair was observed which had taken 

 possession of an old Woodpecker's hole, about 30 feet up a dead branchless cedar. The nest 

 was a foot lower than the entrance to it, and but just begun. Next day a nest was discovered in 

 a natural hole, formed by the rotting away of a juniper-branch, 3 feet from the ground. It 



