76 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



for their Abyssinian specimens. The single specimen collected by 

 Mearns is only slightly darker than a comparable South African 

 example and is, I assume, rather light for pe7\spiciUaris. In fact, 

 it is only very slightly darker, above and below, than the colored 

 figure of a South African bird (typical rupventrls) in Temminck's 

 great work."" The thighs and flanks are noticeably darker than the 

 rest of the underparts ; the under tail coverts are white, while in the 

 figure they are represented as pale grayish. In the plate the edge 

 of the wing from the wrist joint down to the tip of the outer greater 

 coverts is white. I have seen no white there in any of the specimens 

 examined, but only pale tawny, and that extending for only a short 

 distance from the bend of the wing. 



Neumann ^^ writes that in perspicillaris the upper parts are almost 

 slaty black. This is certainly not true of the present specimen in 

 which the upper parts are slaty blue, and not particularly dark blue 

 at that. 



Many authors, following Reichenow, have recorded this species 

 (typical form) from Togoland, on the basis of a specimen in the 

 Berlin Museum. This is wrong, however, as the specimen in question 

 is not rufiventris but ovainpensis in juvenal plumage.**^ 



Reichenow "° writes that in the juvenal plumage the upper parts 

 are dark brown with rusty reddish edges to the feathers, and the 

 head rust color streaked with blackish brown. A female from South 

 Africa in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (M.C.Z. No. 11566), 

 obviously a young bird, has the back dark fuscous brown, but the 

 to)) of the head is also dark, exactly like the back, not rusty brown 

 as in Reichenow's description. The under tail coverts are white, with- 

 out any rufous margins as in Reichenow's specimen. The feathers 

 of the underparts, with the exception of the lower abdomen and 

 under tail coverts, have dark shaft streaks. The breast feathers 

 have apically widening, medial, brownish marks extending from 

 the shafts, while the feathers of the flanks, sides, abdomen, and thighs 

 are banded with rufous brown. The bands on the thighs are nar- 

 rower and more blackish but the entire feathers more tinged with 

 rufous. 



What appears to be the next plumage is similar to the preceding 

 one on the upper parts but is lighter, more cinnamomeous below ; the 

 feathers of the underparts without dark shaft streaks (except for 

 some of the throat and breast feathers, in which the streaks are much 

 narrower and lighter than in juvenal birds) ; the middle of the throat 

 white, not streaked; sides of head cinnamomeous below the eyes; the 



«TP1. Col., vol. 1, pi. 496. 



«sjourn. f. Ornith., 1004, pp. 172-17.'?. 



«>See Stresemann, Journ. f. Ornltb., 1924, p. 84. 



w Vogel Afrikas, vol. 1, pp. 560-561. 



