Though there are so many species of these genera, the bird now before us is the only one that appears to be peculiar to the continent of America. One other, the _Saxicola œnanthe_, a common European bird, is, however, a visitor to this continent. We have seen undoubted specimens from Greenland, and occasionally it strays so far southwardly as New York, in the vicinity of which city a few specimens have been captured, one of which is in the collection of our friend, Mr. George N. Lawrence. The present bird was originally described in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Blossom, from specimens obtained on the western coast of North America; but apparently the naturalists attached to the party which performed that voyage, had no opportunities of acquiring any information respecting its history or the district that it inhabits. Nor have others been more successful; no American naturalist or traveller having noticed it again in Western America, notwithstanding the researches which have been carried on in that portion of this continent. The only specimen that we have ever seen of this bird is in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, to which it was presented by our intimate and valued friend, Thomas M. Brewer, M. D., of the city of Boston, one of the most eminent of American ornithologists, and now particularly devoted to the investigation of the nidification and oology of the birds of this country, the results of which we hope soon to see published. Dr. Brewer obtained the specimen alluded to in Nova Scotia, but could procure no account of it beyond the fact that it was considered as of unusual occurrence in that province. This bird is very closely allied to the Wheat Ear of Europe (_S. œnanthe_), and is in all probability of very similar habits. In the absence of positive information we can only suppose it to be an inhabitant of the countries north of the limits of the United States, in which there is a vast extent of territory well adapted to the habits of birds of this group. It is also probably not an abundant species, or it would have been noticed more frequently during its winter migration. But of the ornithology of all the northern portion of the United States from the ninetieth degree of longitude to the Pacific Ocean, or west of the Mississippi river, too little is known to justify any conclusions. Many species of Northern and Western America, of which little or nothing was previously known, have within a few years been demonstrated to be abundant, and such may hereafter prove to be the case with the bird which is the subject of our present article. The figure in our plate is about two-thirds of the size of life. The plant represented is _Abronia umbellata_, a native of western North America. DESCRIPTION AND TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS. Genus Saxicola. Bechstein, Ornithologisches Taschenbuch, p. 216. (1802.)