BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 3 



to Salt's "A Voyage to Abyssinia, and Travels into the Interior of 

 that Country," etc., 1814. 



These three trips served more to call attention to the fact that 

 northeastern Africa presented a rich and promising field for zoologi- 

 cal exploration rather than to even begin to describe the vertebrate 

 fauna of the country. The first man to betake himself to that region 

 primarily to collect and study its bird life was Eduard Riippell. In 

 1822 he made a memorable journey to Egypt, Nubia, and Kordofan, 

 and 10 years later an equally important trip to Ethiopia. As a re- 

 sult of his work over 100 species of birds were made known to science 

 for the first time — one of the largest numbers of novelties discovered 

 by any single explorer in Africa. In his Systematische Ubersicht der 

 Vogel Nordostafrikas, published in 1845, he lists no fewer than 532 

 species for the region from Egypt to Ethiopia, inclusive. At about 

 the same time that Riippell was in the field Ehrenberg and Hemprich 

 explored the Eritrean-Danakil coastal region (1820-1826) getting 

 inland as far as Dongola on the Nile. Their trip resulted in the now 

 scarce " Symbolae Physicae seu Icones et Descriptiones Avium, quae 

 ex itinere per Africam borealem et Asiam occidentalum F. G. 

 Hemprich et Ch. G. Ehrenberg studio novae aut illustratae re- 

 dierunt," which appeared in 1828. In the 30's of the last cen- 

 tury Hedenborg made a small collection in Sennar and Kordofan 

 which was published on by Sundevall.^ A. E. Brehm's "Reise nach 

 Habesch " (1863) based on his own wanderings, contains many notes 

 on birds of northeast Africa. 



The next quarter of a century was one of great activity in Ethio- 

 pian ornithology. Lefebvre, Petit, and Quartin-Dillon spent the 

 four years 1839-1843 in Ethiopia and collected many birds reported 

 on by Prevost and Des Murs.^ From 1840 to 1842 Ferret and 

 Galinier traveled in extreme northern Ethiopia and made important 

 collections. The bird notes in their " Voyage en Abyssinia, dans les 

 provinces du Tigre, du Samen et de I'Amhara " (Paris, 1847-1848), 

 are not consulted to any extent any more, but Guerin Meneville's 

 papers, based on their material, are still referred to as they contain 

 descriptions of not a few new birds." Of Guerin Meneville's types 

 all 15 are now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology and have been 

 available to me in the present study. The Herzog Paul Wilhelm von 

 Wiirttemberg collected birds in central and northeastern Africa dur- 

 ing 184^1844. Baldamus published on them '^ as he also did ^ on the 



^ Foglar fran Nordostra Af rika : Oefvers. Kgl. Vetensk. Akad. Forhandl., 185U, pp. 

 125-133. 



' In Lefebvre, Voyage en Abyssinie, execute pendant les ann^es 1839-1843. 4. Hisloire 

 Naturelle, 1850 — Zoologie, vol. 6. 



"Rer. Zool., 1843, pp. 161-162 and 321-322. 



* Naumannia, pt. 7, 1857, pp. 432-435. 



' Idem, pts. 5-7, 1855-1857. 



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