( 374 ) 

 23. Turacus persa persa (L.). 



Cucultis persa L., .*>. A', x. 1758. p. 111. [.\fricu]. 



Tourwus tneriaui Rupp., Bericht VerhaiuU. Natiirf. Geselhch. Basel vol. i.x. pp. 04-67 (1851 ; 



January [Gold Kuste]. 

 Tiirarm perxn biillnfri Rchw. Jnurn.f. Orn. 1891. p. 375 [Bismarckburcr, Togo]. 

 Tiiraciis hiiffom zenkeri Rchw., Joiirn. f. Orn. 1890. p. 9 [Jaunde, Kamerim]. 



Ilab. West Africa from the Gold Coast to the Congo. 



It is rather astonishing to find tliat np to this day, with one e.xception, no 

 ornithologist has ever jiointed out the true relation between Tm-acus jjcrsa L. and 

 Turacus buffoni Vieill.— /.t'. that both are nothing but geographical representatives 

 of each other. The one exception is Schlegel, who in his work " De Toeraltos," 1860, 

 ]ip. 10, 17, qnite correctly states that persa is the only one of the two forms 

 occurring on the Gold Coast, ^\i.\\e pur pure lis (= bufoni) is the Senegambian form. 



All other ornithologists, down to Reichenow, Voyel Afrilias, and Shelley, 

 Catalogue of Birds, vol. xix., record both species, as occurring side by side from the 

 Senegal to the (jougo, and in addition to these the former created two subspecies. 



As to Cuculus persa there can be no doubt that Linne described the form 

 which occurs from tlie Gold Coast to the Congo, for both figures which he cpiotes— 

 Albin's as well as Edwards'— show a bird with a distinct white streak below the 

 eye, while the black line below the eye is rather redui'ed. 



RUppell in 1851 described the Gold Coast bird as Turacus meriani, while half 

 a year later he attributed this name with a new description to the red-crested 

 Turacus from Galiiui, afterwards called Musophaga verrea'xxi by Schlegel. 

 Reichenow separated the birds from Togo and Upper Guinea from those of 

 Lower Guinea as T. p. bUttueri, stating that the purple colour of the former 

 inclined more to blue, while it was more copper-brown in the latter ; but after 

 having studied more than fifty birds from both regions, I fail to see even the 

 slightest difference in this way. If the two forms were different, the bird from 

 Upper Guinea would of course have to be called meriani Riijip. Later, Reichenow 

 described birds collected by Zenker in Jaunde, Kameruu, as a subspecies of 

 Turacus buj'oiii, calling them Turacus bufoni zenkeri, and stating this form to 

 be the representative of T. bujf'oni in Lower Guinea, and to occur there side by 

 side with, or at least in the same geograpliical region as, Turacus persa. He 

 states that this bird differs from true bufoni by having only a black jiatch below 

 the eye, in this character resembling T. persa, while the lower white line is stated 

 to be as narrow as in T. bufoni. 



Here again I have failed to see the differences pointed out by lieichenow. 

 It is true that birds from Kamerun, called zenlieri by Reichenow, differ widely 

 from T. bufoni from Senegambia by having only one black iiatch and no long 

 black line below the eye ; but the broadness of the lower white line is an absolutely 

 indifferent character, so that the birds cannot be separated from sjiocimens of 

 T. persa from the Gold Coast and Togo. In some specimens this white line is 

 indeed very narrow, but it is broader in other specimens from the same locality. 

 I also found specimens from Togo and the Gold Coast (in the Berlin and in the 

 British Museums) in which this line is as narrow as in most of the Soutii Kamerun 

 and Gabun birds. 



It thus remains to acknowledge only two subspecies of Turacus persa : 



1. Turacus persa persa (L.) From the Gold Coast to the Congo. 



~ 'I'uracus persa bufoni (Vieill.J. From Senegambia to Sierra Leone. 



