BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 73 



chestnut, very broadly tipped with black; rectrices bright chestnut 

 tipped with black ; the outer web of the outermost pair more or less 

 distinctly barred w^ith black. (In one specimen the outer web is 

 grayish distinctly barred with 13 black bands while the inner web 

 is unbarred and chestnut in color. Occasionally the outer web of 

 the next pair of rectrices is also somewhat banded.) Underparts 

 black except for the under tail coverts which are tawny to chestnut 

 broadly tipped with black; the greater (lowest row) under wing 

 coverts dark gray narrowly banded with from three to six white bars. 

 5. Adult plumage. 



A. Similar to the subadult but with the chin and center of throat 

 pure white, and the black tips of the under wing coverts much 

 reduced or wanting, and the tail feathers with less blackish termi- 

 nally. 



B. Similar to the subadult but with general color black, never 



fuscous, and greater under wing coverts dark gray with no white 

 bars. 



It seems as though the adult plumage is not acquired before the 

 fourth year. The tail in the adult and subadult plumages is usually 

 shorter than in the juvenal and immature stages. 



It may be noted that Neumann ^^ records intermediates between 

 banded and unhanded tails in this species, and consequently hesitates 

 to sa}' whether the banded rectrix is a juvenal character. What he 

 had were probably subadult birds. In a species w^ith the complex 

 plumage transforaiations and color phases of the present one, such 

 aberrancies are not surprising. 



The species breeds in subadult as well as in adult plumage. A 

 female in the former plumage collected by Arthur Loveridge at 

 Shandwa, Tanganyika Territory, was shot off a nest containing two 

 eggs. The breeding season in Ethiopia is apparently somewhat 

 different from that in equatorial east Africa. Swann ^- records eggs 

 on October 25 and August 22 in Kenya Colony, and on September 

 15 in Nyasaland. Loveridge's Tanganyika record was made on 

 October 23. Yet Mearns collected a juvenal bird still in the nest in 

 the Arussi Plateau on February 17. Allowing two months for 

 incubation and growth of the bird, the egg date would be about the 

 third week in December. 



Neumann ^^ notes that at altitudes over 2,800 meters (9,400 feet) 

 he saw only the white-bellied phase of this buzzard, while lower 

 down the two phases were found. Mearns collected the dark phase 

 at altitudes of from 4,000 to 9,000 feet (1,200 to 2,750 meters), and 

 the light phase likewise up to 9,000 feet. 



"Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 363. 



" Monogr. of Birds of Prey, pt. 6, 1926, p. 386. 



s3Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 363. 



