50 



BULLETIN" 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



coverts is more or less irregular but seems to begin with the lesser 

 coverts and to progress from them to the greater ones. 



Judging by rather scanty and not entirely satisfactory evidence, it 

 seems as though the remiges are not molted in the transition from 

 immature to subadult plumage, which, if true, would indicate that 

 it takes but one year to make this change and two to achieve the 

 full adult plumage. 



The molt from the grayish or tawny grayish subadult plumage 

 into the adult type is irregular, apparently beginning more or less 

 simultaneously all over the body, but not involving the remiges or 

 the rectrices until the body molt is well advanced. 



Swann ^^ gives the wing length of this vulture as varying from 

 475 to 520 millimeters. The series (adults only) in the United States 

 National Museum have wings of from 484 to 537 millimeters. Er- 

 langer's figures for birds from Ethiopia and Somaliland®' average 

 slightly higher than do the birds collected by Mearns in the same 

 general region. 



While females average slightly larger than males, the amount of 

 individual variation in both sexes is so great that the size limits are 

 about the same for the males as for the females. 



Locality 



Syria, Bey rout.. 

 Egypt, Helouan. 



Do 



Sex 



Sudan, El Dueim, White Nile 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Ethiopia, Dire Daoua 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Sardinia 



Do 



Spain, Province of Burgos 



& 



cf (?) imma- 

 ture. 



9 



& 



d^ 



& 



9 



? 



? 



9 



9 



Juvenile 



9 immature. 

 9 juvenile __ 

 Immature 



This vulture, commonly known as " Pharaoh's chicken," is very 

 abundant and widely distributed throughout Ethiopia and Kenya 

 Colony. Mearns found it common at Djibouti on the Red Sea, and 

 abundant around native villages from there up to Adis Abeba. " In- 

 deed we were seldom out of sight of them on the march from Dire 

 Daoua up to here (Adis Abeba). They associated with the other 



^ Synopsis of the Accipitres, ed. 2, 1922, p. 11. 

 «"Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 153. 



