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NOTES ON AFRICAN BIRDS. 



I. 

 By ERNST HARTERT. 



DURING the last seven years the Tring Museum has been greatly enriched 

 with African birdskins. While formerly Africa was poorly represented 

 at Tring, the African collections from some portions of the continent and 

 neighbouring islands are now surpassed by no others, and altogether it is probable 

 that, next to the British and Berlin Museums, we have now the biggest collection 

 of African birds. Besides numerous smaller lots bought or exchanged from mnsenms, 

 dealers, or travellers, we received since 1900 : 



1958 skins from the Escarpment, Kikuvu Mountains, collected by Doherty. 



720 collected by the late A. W. Eriksson in Damaralaud and on the Limpopo. 



289 from S. Thome, taken by A. Mocquerys. 



1079 from the Lower Niger, collected by W. J. Ansorge. 



368 from Southern Angola, collected by C. H. Pemberton. 



292 from the Amambara Creek, Niger, collected by Braham. 



1533 from Southern Ethiopia and N. Somaliland, collected by Sapphire 



291 from Northern Abyssinia, from G. Schrader. 



Over 5000 from Angola, collected by W. J. Ansorge. 



208 from Erythrea, from Beccari, jun. 



1525 from Oscar Neumann's travels. 



792 from Uganda, collected by Rudolf Grauer. 



Few of these collections have been properly studied, most of them have so far 

 only received casual attention, though new forms have from time to time been 

 described by Neumann and myself. 



It seemed desirable to give lists of these collections, because many species were 

 taken in new localities, while others are nndescribed or give important clues to 

 the nomenclature, affinities or distribution of forms, or, in some cases, serve to clear 

 up questions and to correct errors. 



Work in African Birds is now comparatively easy, since Reichenow's great work 

 Die Voyel Afrikas is complete, and since parts of Shelley's Birds of Africa have 

 appeared. Nevertheless many questions are as yet unsettled in Africa, the 

 geographical forms of many species have not yet received sufficient attention — 

 chiefly because collections from the various districts are housed in various countries 

 and have not been compared side by side — and it seemed especially interesting 

 to see what the conclusions of an impartial observer were in cases where authorities 

 like Reichenow, Shelley, Sharpe and others disagreed, if such conclusion could 

 be arrived at from the material preserved at Tring and otherwise available to the 

 author for comparison. I hope soon to continue this article. 



My thanks are due to those of my colleagues who kindly lent me material 

 for comparison or allowed me to study the collections under their care. 



