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Show 238 MESSRS. BLANFORD AND DRESSER ON [Apr. 21, than the back ; chin and middle of abdomen still lighter in colour ; axillaries isabelline ; lower tail-coverts rufous. Culmen 0'65, wing 3-35, tail 2-35, tarsus 1. Hab. South Africa. Note.-This species has been identified by most modern writers with either Saxicola sperata, Lath., or S.familiaris, Stephens. W e are unable to agree with either identification. S. sperata of Latham (Ind. Ornith. ii. p. 523) was founded on the Traquet du Cap de Bonne-Espe'rance of Buffon, Ois. vi. p. 123, described as having the upper part of the body, including the upper part of the neck and head, of a very brown green ("d'un vert tres-brun"), the two central rectrices blackish brown, the two laterals marked obliquely with brown on a tawny ground, the more so as they approach the outside (" les deux laterales sont marquees obliquement de brun sur un fond fauve et d'autant plus qu'elles sont plus exterieures). This is not very intelligible; but the word " deux " may have been inserted by mistake, and it may mean that there is more brown on the outer rectrices and that the quantity diminishes gradually towards the middle, the central pair being blackish brown throughout. This description can scarcely apply to S. galtoni, in which the back has no green tinge and the outer rectrices are ferruginous, not tawny or fulvous. S.familiaris, Stephens (Shaw, Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 241), was founded on Le Traquet familier of Levaillant's ' Oiseaux d'Afrique,' pi. 183. W e quite agree with Mr. Gray in excluding this from the genus Saxicola. Mr. Gray refers it to A'edon; and Levaillant's plate certainly agrees better with A. leucophrys, V., than with any Chat, the breast being represented as spotted. The description of the habits given by Levaillant may very possibly apply to S. galtoni; but Stephens's name can only be referred to the figure. It will be gathered from the above that we doubt whether the bird referred to by Mr. Gurney, in the note to &. familiaris in Andersson's 'Birds of Damara Land,' p. 104, should be called S. sperata. W e have seen but a single specimen of the form mentioned by M r . Gurney, and which, as he says, is distinguished from S. galtoni (his S. familiaris) by the whitish colour of the rump. The distribution of the colours on the rectrices also appears to us different in the two forms. W e consider the pale-rumped form undescribed, but we shall not apply a new name on the evidence of a single skin. 35. SAXICOLA SINUATA. Luscinia sinuata, Sundevall, O m Levaillant's Ois. d'Afr., Kong. Sv. Vet. Akad. Hand. ii. no. 3, p. 44, note (1857). Saxicola sinuata, Layard, Birds of South Africa, p. 106. Adult. Upper parts dark hair-brown, rufescent towards the rump, which latter with the upper tail-coverts is rufous; quills dull black, the secondaries and coverts with pale rufous margins; tail-feathers blackish brown, the basal portion and margins very pale rufous, the amount of the latter colour increasing on the external rectrices, |