BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 91 



hold in northeastern Africa seems to be southern Gallaland, the 

 eastern part of the Hawash valley, and southern Somaliland. Er- 

 langer ^ writes that he never saw this species in the highlands, but 

 met with it in the southern Shoan Lakes district, and found it an 

 abundant bird in the Acacia savannas of Somaliland and southern 

 Gallaland. He records collecting a female in breeding condition 

 on April 6 in Gurraland. Heuglin found this bird common in the 

 cultivated lands of the Nile valley in Nubia and Sennar and ob- 

 served the breeding season there to be in July and August. 



Mearns observed this bird in several localities where he did not 

 collect any — Indunumara Mountains, July 14—18, 2 birds seen ; plains 

 at base and south of Endoto Mountains, July 21-21, 1 noted; Athi 

 Kiver, August 31, 2 birds seen. 



CIRCUS MACROURUS (Gmelin) 



Accipiter macrounis S. G. Gmelin, N. Comni. Acad. Petrop., vol. 15, p. 439, 

 pis. 8 and 9, 1771 : Veronetz Gouv. to the Volga. 



Specimens collected: 



Male adult, Adis i^beba, Ethiopia, December 31, 1911. 

 Immature, Arussi Plateau (10,000 feet, 3,000 meters), Ethiopia, 

 February 27, 1912. 

 Female adult, Gidabo River, Ethiopia, March 15, 1912. 



The colors of the soft parts of the adult female were recorded as 

 follows : Iris, brown ; bill, black, greenish yellow on base of man- 

 dible and sides of maxilla at base; feet, yellow; claws, black. 



The unsexed immature bird probably was a female, as it is rather 

 large (wing 373 millimeters). With the material at hand (8 adult 

 males, 4 adult females, and 7 young birds) I can not differentiate a 

 Juvenal and an immature plumage as Hartert has done.^*^ All seven 

 young birds examined seem to agree with what he refers to as the im- 

 mature plumage. The one young specimen collected by Mearns differs 

 from the four others from Palestine in that it has the cere darker 

 (in dried skin), more blackish, while the four from Palestine have 

 the cere distinctly yellowish in color. A young bird from Kenya 

 Colony, and another from Tanganyika Territory agree with the 

 Abyssinian specimen. This difference in the color of the cere does 

 not hold for adult birds, although Palestinian specimens have the 

 cere yellower on the average than African birds. 



The color of the throat varies considerably in these seven imma- 

 ture birds. In some it is almost uniform pale buffy, the somewhat 

 darker and grayer shaft streaks not extending beyond the proximal 



•Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 179. 



"V6g. Palaarktischcn Fauna, vol. 2, p. 1142. 



