ML641957346

Observation details

"Saxicola Hendersoni (Hume). (Pl. XIII.) This species, which Mr. Hume believes to be new, was found at the Arpalak River near Sānju, and at Koshtak, twenty miles further north. They were found in fields, little patches of cultivation on the borders of the desert, and were associated with S. atrogularis. [G. H.]" (Henderson and Hume, 1873, p. 206) This refers to Pied Wheatear: "I have no topotypical material to compare with, but birds fromTranscaspia and Russian Turkestan are apparently inseparablefrom those of the Tarim basin. Saxicola hendersoni Hume obviously based on the fall plumage, ...the plate of the male in "Lahore to Yarkand" (pi. 13) agrees minutely with the Yaka-kuduk specimen of that sex in the collection. According to Scully (p. 144), who recorded it under Hume's name from the country between the Kilian and Sanju rivers, this chat breeds in Kashgaria. Pleske, in his memoir on Przewalski's collection, cites numerous localities from the Tarim basin, where the species seems to be pretty common during migration, and states that it prefers the mountain valleys and foothills as nesting ground." (Hellmayr, 1931, pp. 108-109) References: Henderson, G. and Hume, A. O. (1873) Lahore to Yārkand: incidents of the route and natural history of the countries traversed by the expedition of 1870, under T. D. Forsyth London: L. Reeve. Hellmayr, C. E. (1931) Birds of the James Simpson-roosevelts Asiatic expedition, in Field Museum of Natural History, Zoological series, pub. 263, vol. 17, no. 3,