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Show 234 MESSRS. BLANFORD AND DRESSER ON [Apr. 21, Adult male. Head and nape ashy grey ; shoulders, rump, upper tail-coverts, basal portion of all the outer rectrices, and abdomen white ; back, wings, central rectrices, and tips of the outer rectrices, lores, ear-coverts, throat, and breast black; on the outermost tail-feathers the black extends further up the outer than the inner web ; but on the third and fourth rectrices from the outside the reverse is the case ; the penultimate rectrices are entirely white (and in some specimens the two outer rectrices on each side are entirely white). In immature specimens the head is dusky, the feathers dark-shafted, the abdomen is black, with a few white edges to some of the feathers, and the lesser coverts near the carpus are mixed white and black. In the adult birds there is a rudimentary supercilium. Culmen 0-9, wing 4-4, tail 2"8, tarsus L25. Female1. Upper parts to the rump dark cinereous, shoulders white, a few of the median coverts dark-shafted ; quills brownish black; tail as in the male ; underparts uniform cinereous. Hab. South Africa, Colesburg, Natal, and Transvaal. Obs. Of the above species we have examined eight specimens- five in the plumage described as that of the male, and three in that of the female. Of the former, we have two phases of plumage corresponding to precisely similar phases in the birds we have identified with 5. monticola and S. leucomelana. In one the entire abdomen is white, and in the other white and black mixed ; the first we suppose to be the adult, and the other the young. W e therefore do not think that the present can be the young of 5. monticola ; and some of the specimens described have certainly no appearance of immaturity. W e have examined four examples of what we consider to be the male of S. leucomelana-also two of what we consider to be the male of S. monticola, and five of the female ; and the plumage is so constant in every case that we cannot but believe that we have before us three well-marked species. 28. SAXICOLA DILUTA, sp. nov. (Plate XXXIX. fig. 1.) S. capite insuper dorsoque pallide cinereis; humeris uropygio supracaudalibusque albis ; rectricibus mediis nigrescenti-fuscis, cateris albis nigro terminatis, extremis extus apicem versus ple-rumque nigro marginatis; remigibus nigrescenti-fuscis ; lateribus capitisgastraoqueperpallide cinereis ; abdomine albescente, infracaudalibus ex albo cum nigro mixtis. In nonnullis ex-emplis vertex nuchaque pallescunt, et ad medias plumas inter-scapulii, tectricumque minorum alarum stria fusca adsunt. Culm. long. 0*8, ala 4*1, cauda 2*55, tarsi I'22, poll. Angl. Adult male. Upper parts to the rump pale cinereous ; shoulders, rump, and upper tail-coverts white ; central pair of rectrices blackish brown, outer rectrices white with black tips, the black usually running some distance up the external web of the outer pair; quills brownish black ; sides of the head and underparts very pale cinereous, becoming whitish on the abdomen; under tail-coverts white and black mixed. In some specimens the head and nape are paler |