BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 71 



Female immature, Alaltu, Ethiopia, January 16, 1912. 



Male, near Saleish, Ethiopia, January 18, 1912. 



Male, near Ankoba, Ethiopia, January 21, 1912. 



Male immature, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 17, 1912. 



Male, Arussi Plateau, February 28, 1912. 



Two males, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 29, 1912. 



Male, Cofali, Ethiopia, March 2, 1912. 



Male, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 16, 1912. 



Male, Gato Eiver near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 18, 1912. 



The colors of the soft parts are recorded by Mearns as follows: 

 Subadult male in light phase — cere, commissural margin, and feet 

 yellow ; bill bluish gray at base, the rest black ; claws, black. Of an 

 adult male in dark phase he noted — cere, gape, and feet yellow. 



One of the birds had some frogs and a toad in its stomach. 



The immature male from Arussi Plateau, February 17, was taken 

 from a nest 30 feet up in a juniper tree. The nest was made of 

 sticks lined with grass and fresh juniper. 



The two males taken on February 29 in the Arussi Plateau, the 

 bird from Cofali, and the one collected April 18 near Gardula, are 

 in the black phase, the others in the light phase. 



The plumages of this buzzard are quite bewildering at first glance 

 but, if we keep in mind that the species is dichromatic it is quite 

 feasible to bring the various plumages into an orderly sequence. 

 Two previous writers have already attempted to do this.^^ Swann's 

 account *^ leaves much to be desired. With their observations and 

 conclusions and the long series of specimens in the United States 

 National Museum and the Museum of Comparative Zoology as a 

 basis. I offer the following account of the plumages and molts of 

 Buteo Tufofuscus (mgur. 



1. Natal down. — I have seen no specimens in this plumage, but 

 judging from the down left on a bird in advanced postnatal molt, 

 it is very light brownish gray. 



2. Juvenile plumage acquired by a complete j)ostnatal molt while 

 the bird is in the nest. 



The two color phases first appear in this plumage, and are present 

 in all subsequent ones. For convenience we may refer to the light 

 phase as "A" and the dark phase as " B," as has been done by C. H. B. 

 (Trant.^° 



A. Upper parts varying from Prout's brown to pale fuscous, more 

 or less uniform in any single specimen, but not infrequently lighter 



« Neumann, Journ. f. Ornlth., 1904, pp. 362-364 and C. H. B. Grant, Ibis, 1915, pp. 

 243-244. 



" MoDogr. of the Birds of Prey, pt. 6, Sept. 192G, pp. 385-386. 

 ^Ibis, 1915, p. 243. 



