Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/89

Rh Habits, $-c. Breeds in May and June, building its nest in a hole of a stone wall or in a pile of stones. The eggs are described as being pale blue, with small dusky red freckles, and one measured 72 by -56.

622. Saxicola barnesi. Barnes's Chat.

Saxicola erythrsea, Hemp. 8f Ehr., apud Blanford, East. Pers. ii, p. 150.

Saxicola fmsckii, IIcuyL, apud Seebohm, Cat. B. M. v, p. 388 (part.) ; apud St. John, Ibis, 1889, p. 163.

Coloration. Male. After the autumn moult the forehead, crown, nape, hind neck T and the middle portion of the back are buff; the sides of the back, scapulars, wing-coverts, tertiaries, lores, sides of the head and neck, chin, and throat black, a few of the feathers with narrow pale fringes ; winglet and primary-coverts black, broadly edged with pale huffy white; quills dark brown, more narrowly edged with pale buff ; rump, upper tail-coverts, breast, and lower plumage white ; under wing-coverts and axillaries black ; tail white, except the terminal half of the middle pair of feathers and a band at the tip of all the others, which are black. In summer the buff upper plumage wears down almost to a white colour, and the fringes on the black portions are cast.

The female is unknown to me. The female of the allied S. finsclii is thus described by Canon Tristram : " Back uniform cinereous ; wings brown ; rump white ; tail white, with broad black termination like the male ; throat pale ashy brown ; rest of lower parts dull white."

Length nearly 7 ; tail 2-6 ; wing 3*7 ; tarsus 1-05 ; bill from gape -2.

This species differs from S. finschi, the only Chat with which it can be confounded, in having only the chin and throat black, and this colour not connected with the axillaries, from which it is separated by a broad band of white. In S.Jtnschi the breast is black, and connected with the black axillaries.

Distribution. Occurs in Baluchistan and Afghanistan and east- wards to Persia. This species is probably resident in all parts of its range. I have examined specimens obtained at Quetta in February, at Kandahar in March and September, and in Persia in March and June.

623. Saxicola vittata. The Black-backed Eared Clint.

Saxicola vittata, Jlcntpr. ,S' Elir. Si/mb. r/iys. Are*, fol. cc (1833); Blanf. $ Drc.s-.svv, 1 Z. S. 1874, p. 220 ; Seebohm, Cat. B. M. v, p. 3iMi: /iiddii/jA, Ibis, 1881, p. 59; Hume, S. F. ix, p. 324 note ; Scully, Ibis, 1881, p. 444 ; Biddulph, Ibis, 1882, p. 277.

Coloration. Male. In autumn the forehead, crown, nape, hind neck, and a small portion of the upper back are white, tinged with