290 



brown, with whitish grey and brownish grey margins; tail and rump as in the male, but duller; throat 

 and breast pale brownish ash-grey, fadirig into whitish grey with a reddish tinge on the abdomen ; 

 under tail-coverts pale cinnamon-orange. 



Young Female (Ladak, August) . Upper parts darker than in the adult female, with indistinct markings ; 

 margins to the wing-feathers pale reddish brown ; underparts duller than in the adult, the margins to 

 the feathers on the throat and breast darker, giving these parts a peculiar mottled appearance. 



This, the common Indian Redstart, is only found in the Western Palaearctic Region in the 

 extreme east, having been met with by Canon Tristram in Palestine, within view of the Medi- 

 terranean ; but in Asia it is found throughout India, eastward into Mongolia and China, and 

 southward to the extreme southern portion of the mainland ; but it has not been recorded from 

 Ceylon. 



Canon Tristram, in his notes on the ornithology of Palestine (Ibis, 1867, p. 87), writes that 

 there it is most restricted in its range, occurring only on the higher slopes of Hermon and 

 Lebanon. " On the former mountain it is scarce ; and though we saw two specimens, we were 

 Tillable to secure them ; and our first captures were in June on ascending to Ainat from the plain 

 of Coele Syria, where it was plentiful in the stunted oak-groves. While shy and wary, the male 

 bird is too striking in appearance easily to elude observation; and its restlessness, cheerful and 

 varied note, and habit of perching on an exposed bough or stone, expanding and jerking its 

 bright cinnamon tail, soon betray its presence. Though its range is so extremely limited, yet in 

 the Lebanon district it frequents all kind of ground alike — both the naked cliffs and summits of 

 the range, the woods, and especially cedar-groves, and not less the mulberry-plantations of the 

 villages. At the famous Cedars it was very abundant, and we saw at least fifty scattered about 

 there. Its song resounded from the lower boughs of the old patriarchs; but after expanding its 

 tail for a few seconds, it always changed its perch and flitted on, sometimes going into the open, 



perching like a Rock-Chat on a boulder, and then dropping out of sight on the other side 



Whether this species is sedentary or not we have not ascertained ; but if it be not merely a 

 summer visitor, it is remarkably late in nesting; for on the 26th June, on going down from the 

 ( ledars to Meiruba, we took a nest with four eggs not very hard-set, having caught the bird with 

 the hand, as she remained under the little crevice in the rock where the eggs were deposited in 

 a slightly built nest. It was on the ground, on the side of a precipitous hill. On the preceding 

 day we had obtained two nests of Emheriza cia — not a bad capture so late in the year; and the 

 final close of our nesting-season was on the 26th June, when descending the Lebanon, with the 

 glorious view of the Mediterranean, on which we were soon to embark, just opening before us. 

 The colophon of my egg-book for 1864 is, ' Nest of 4 eggs, Buticilla semirufa, 2 caught on nest. 

 Eggs not before known.' I may add that they are like those of our common Redstart, but of a 

 more delicate and paler blue." The present species was obtained in Egypt by Hemprich and 

 Ehrenberg, but not by any recent collectors ; and these gentlemen also met with it in Syria. 

 Dr. Severtzoff records it (/. c), under the name of Buticilla erythroprocta, as breeding in Turke- 

 stan, and informs me that he has compared his specimens with those in the Berlin Museum, 

 collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg, and has convinced himself that they are specifically 

 identical. Mr. Blanf'ord obtained it in South-eastern Persia, Baluchistan, and Sindh ; and, 



