BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 



as the birds Avere concerned. With the advent of the British East 

 Africa Co., numerous collections began pouring into the British 

 Museum from what is now Kenya Colony. Sir Frederick Jackson's 

 is, perhaps, the most outstanding name in this connection. The 

 late Kichard Bowdler Sharpe and Dr. Anton Reichenow published 

 many papers on the avifauna of East Africa. 



By far the most important contributions to knowledge of the 

 avifauna of Ethiopia made in the last 30 years have resulted from 

 the expeditions and investigations of Carlo von Erlanger, Oscar 

 Neumann, and Graf von Zedlitz (all of whose results were published 

 in the Journal fiir Ornithologie, 1904r-1915). To these three orni- 

 thologists, more than to any others, is due the present exactness of 

 our information of the distribution and subspecific variations of the 

 birds of that country. 



The Frick expedition followed partly along the routes taken by 

 Erlanger, Neumann, and others, but instead of stopping in southern 

 Shoa, went on southward a good distance to the east of Teleki's 

 route and explored a sizable tract of land to the east of Lake Ru- 

 dolf, previously unknown, and then on to the Athi River to the 

 Uganda Railway. After his return from Africa, Dr. E. A. Mearns 

 began his investigations of the geographic variations of the birds of 

 eastern Africa, a work that has since been carried on actively by a 

 number of investigators, among whom the most prominent are 

 V. G. L. van Someren, Claude H. B. Grant, and Oscar Neumann. It 

 is a matter greatly to be regretted that the collections brought back 

 by Mearns and Frick should have had to lie dormant ever since 

 Mearns' death in 1916, inasmuch as the collections contain many 

 birds that were unknown at the time they were obtained and which 

 have since been described from other sources. 



It should be clearly understood that Mearns planned to write 

 a complete report, not only on the birds collected by the Frick 

 expedition, but also on those obtained (chiefly by himself) by the 

 Smithsonian-Roosevelt expedition. To this end he borrowed and 

 examined most of the east African material in American museums, 

 and published descriptions of no fewer than 88 species and sub- 

 species new to science. The birds collected by the Frick expedition 

 total approximately S.200 specimens, a monument to the industry of 

 Mearns. 



Inasmuch as the activity of other investigators has practically 

 drained northeastern Africa of unknown birds, I have been more 

 concerned, in the present report, with revising many of the groups, 

 elucidating their plumages and molts, and mapping more accurately 

 their respective ranges. Wherever it has been possible to identify 

 Mearns' field notes beyond all doubt I have incorporated them, and 



