108 
Mr. W. R. Ogilvie Grant on Birds 
f,g. <$><$• Phil wall a, Abyssinia, 16 February, 1899. 
(Nos. 319, 320.) 
h. $ • Bilo, Abyssinia, 10 March, 1899. (No. 389.) 
Iris brown ; bill and legs black. 
[A very common bird throughout our journey. Like the 
rest of its kind, this Chat was in much plumper condition as 
March approached and the migration-time drew near.—L.] 
139. Pratincola albofasciata. 
Pratincola albofasciata (Riipp.) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. 
Mus. iv. p. 198 (1879) ; Sharpe, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 487. 
a. (J. Warabili, Abyssinia, 3 January, 1899. (No. 98.) 
b . $ . Tra, Abyssinia, 7 January, 1899. (No. 135.) 
c. $ . Akake, Abyssinia, 23 January, 1899. (No. 274.) 
d. $ juv. Gimbi, Abyssinia, 23 March, 1899. (No. 444.) 
Iris brown; bill and legs black. 
Specimen a, a male, shot on the 3rd of January, has the 
feathers of the breast widely margined with rusty red, and the 
feathers of the crown and lower back indistinctly edged with 
the same colour. 
Specimen b, a male shot on the 7th of January, has the 
rusty margins of the breast-feathers nearly obsolete, and the 
crown and lower back are black. 
Specimen c } which is marked $ certain, 23rd January,” 
is in the plumage of a breeding male, the breast as well as the 
upper parts being uniform black, without a trace of the rust- 
coloured edgings to the feathers. Lord Lovat assures me that 
there can be no doubt that this bird was proved to be a female 
by dissection. 
It may be worth remarking that an undoubted female of 
Saxicola montana shot by myself on Sokotra had the chin and 
throat black, narrowly fringed with isabelline, and was per¬ 
fectly similar in plumage to numbers of males from the same 
locality. It would thus seem that among the Chats the 
female sometimes assumes the male plumage. 
[Specimen c (No. 274) was certainly a female. I speci¬ 
ally called Mr. Harwood’s attention to the fact, and noted 
the sex in red ink in my notebook. There is, I believe, a 
