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NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE, 



Vol. XXIV. DECEMBER 1917. No. HI. 



ON THE CRESTED LARKS OF THE NILE VALLEY. 



By dr. ERNST HARTERT. 



WHEN, in the winter of 1903-1904, I wrote about the Crested Larks in 

 Vog. pal. Fauna, pp. 227-40, I had only a very scanty material from 

 the Nile Valley to study. It was therefore hardly possible to arrive at anything 

 like a linal and faultless aoeount in such a difficult group. Since then I have 

 been enabled to see fairly good series, though not at all complete ones from 

 all parts of Egypt. I now come to the following conclusions. 



The delta, a))pai'entl\' to Cairo, is inhabited by tlie darkest form : 



Galerida cristata nigricans Brehm. 



South of Cairo occurs over a wide area a form wliich is not so very unlike 

 G. c. nigricans, but difl'ers from it at a glance in the paler, more whitish under- 

 side and the markings on the jugulum and chest being smaller and more sharply 

 defined. This form was deseiibed by Nicoll & Bonhote (Bull. B.O. Club, 

 xxiii. p. 101. 1909) as Galerida cristata moeritica, from specimens collected in 

 the Fayum. Of the latter I have examined and have now before me several 

 specimens, collected by M. J. Nicoll, one from Luxor, A. L. Butler leg., four 

 from an island in the Nile near Khizam (about 14 km. north of Luxor), Upjier 

 Egypt, VV. L. S. Loat leg., and a paii-, collected at Assuan 24. iii. 1850, by 

 Oskar Brehm. These latter are the types of — 



Galerita cristata macidata Brehm. 



{Nnumannia, 1858, p. 208). Brehm said that his son Oskar shot a pair with 

 one shot near "Assuan in Nubia," on March 24th, 1850. It is true that he 

 adds " iind Alfred ein Weibchen bei Masnou in Spanien am 1 Juni 1850." This 

 latter specimen I have traced ; the date is wrongly given. Alfred Brehm was 

 not in Spain in 1850, when he collected with his brother 0.skar on the Nile, but 

 we went there 1856. The Masnou specimen was shot May 1st, 1856. It has 

 first been named " macidata " by C. L. Brehm, but afterwards he crossed " macu- 

 lata " out and altered it to " striata," a nomen nudum never published with a 

 description. It is true that this bird is darker and more brownish than other 

 Spanish Crested Larks, and closely resembles the Nile birds ; but it belongs, of 

 course, to G. c. pallida, the Spanish race, and the Assuan birds are undoubtedly 

 the types of " macidata." Therefore this form must be called G. cristata macidatn, 

 and moeritica becomes a .synonym. When I wrote Part II. of my book on the 

 palaearctic birds, in 1904, 1 put macidata down as a synonym of altirostris ; this 

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