178 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTO'RY ORNITHOLOGY, VOL. I. 



tip only, and four have white on the outer web for at least a third of 

 its length. The under parts of the body do not vary materially. 

 The two from Nairobi, the one from Athi River, the one from Lake 

 Elmenteita and one of those from Kijabe lack white secondaries, 

 while the other three have them. Of the females having no white 

 on the secondaries, the wing measurement runs from 87 mm. to 93 

 mm.; while of those of the same sex having secondaries edged with 

 white, the same measurement runs from 90 mm. to 94 mm. 



The description of (gthiopicus, based on specimens from Abys- 

 sinia, in Vol. VIII, Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, 

 states that all the quills are black, though a female from Anseba has 

 the "outer web of one of the secondaries on the right wing very 

 faintly edged with white." These birds with black secondaries are 

 from the type region of the species, Abyssinia. Madarasz described 

 his L. ambiguus* as similar to L. athiopicus, but differing from the 

 latter in having no white on the secondaries. The dimensions of 

 ambiguus as given are practically identical with those of the Abys- 

 sinian birds in the British Museum, so ambiguus, agreeing with cethi- 

 opicus in lacking white on the secondaries as well as in size, has no 

 distinctive character to support its existence and must fall into 

 synonomy. The individual variation exhibited in this series of 

 specimens evidently extends in some degree to the birds in Abys- 

 sinia and elsewhere, and has proven a stumbling block to various 

 authors. The following citations give a clew to the efforts that have 

 been made to confine by nomenclatural bonds this obstreperous 

 species: 



HARTERT, Novitates Zoological, 1902, p. 622; NEUMANN, Journal 

 fur Ornithologie, 1899, pp. 406, 407; ibid. 1900 pp. 270, 271; ibid, 

 1905, pp. 222, 223; ERLANGER, ibid. 1905, pp. 697, 698; REICHENOW, 

 Jahrbuch der Hamburgischen Wissenschaftlichen Anstalten, X. (1893) 

 Hamburg, pp. 19-21, - (Dryoscopus major). 



172. Laniarius abbotti Richmond. 



Auk, 1897, p. 161. Mt. Kilimanjaro, German East Africa. 

 d\ d\ Sept., Mt. Kenya. 



See SHARPE, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, London, 1900, 

 pp. 605, 606, distribution. 



173. Pomatorhynchus senegalus orientalis (Cab.). 

 Pomatorhynchus orientalis Cabanis, Von der Decken's Reisen, 



III. (1869) p. 27. Mombasa, British Africa. 



* Annales Historico Naturalis Musei Xationalis Hungarici, 1904, p. 205. 



