BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 



87 



placed in turn by the first adult plumage. He feels that the first 

 gray adult plumage is not assumed until the second or third year. 

 I rather doubt that there are two brown plumages — a dark juvenal 

 and lighter immature, but suspect that Zedlitz was comparing young 

 birds of opposite sex. I have seen dark juvenal males in which a 

 few dark grayish (adult type) feathers were sprouting. 



As mentioned under the preceding species, the wing coverts and 

 secondaries of metabates are usually, but not always, vermiculated 

 or freckled with white or grayish white. This variation is corre- 

 lated with sex, but not with age, season, wear, or locality. Males 

 have far more of the white marks than have the females. It is 

 possible to pick out males from a series merely by the whiter appear- 

 ance of the folded wings. I suspect that this may in part account 

 for Zedlitz's mention of two types of adult plumage, one darker 

 than the other.- Still, even among females about one bird in ten 

 lias practically no vermiculations, but the lightness and abundance 

 of these markings in the rest is by no means uniform. Every grada- 

 tion occurs from none at all to such abundance of freckles that the 

 folded wings look almost like those of male birds. 



The size variations of typical tnetdbaies may be judged from the 

 following jBgures. 



Locality 



Sex 



Eritrea, Aileb 



Arabia: 



Sheik Othman 



Do 



Lahej 



Sheik Othman 



Ethiopia: 



Gato River 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Do 



Near Gardula 



Adis Abeba 



Tanganyika Territory 



Arabia: 



Lahej 



Sheik Othman 



Sudan: 



Blue Nile, Singa 



Dinder River 



Ethiopia: 



Gato River 



Do 



Kenya Colony, Victoria Nyanza. 

 Tanganyika Territory, Mwadira. 



cf adult. 

 do.. 



.do. 

 .do. 

 .do. 



.do. 

 -do. 

 .do. 



.do. 

 .do. 

 .do. 

 .do. 

 .do. 

 -do. 



9 adult. 

 do- 



.do.. 

 .do.. 



.do., 

 .do., 

 .do-, 

 -do.. 



2Journ. f. OiDitb., 1910, pp. 367-369. 



